Securitize, Elixer launch DeFi vaults for Blackrock’s BUIDL
2024-11-19

Securitize and Elixer are launching a liquid staking token (LST) for tokenized securities, including Blackrock’s on-chain money fund, BUIDL, the cryptocurrency platforms said on Nov. 19.
Designed by Elixer, a blockchain network for crypto exchanges, the deUSD RWA Institutional Program “unlocks enhanced yield-opportunities and composability for more than $1B Real World Assets (RWAs) issued by Securitize across decentralized finance (DeFi),” Securitize said in a press release. 
The DeFi vaults, based on the Ethereum ETHUSD network’s ERC-4626 standard, “allows Blackrock BUIDL and other RWA holders to seamlessly access DeFi using deUSD as the primary currency,” Elixer said in a Nov. 19 post on the X platform.
Tokenized by Securitize, BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) is a money market fund that invests primarily in short-dated United States Treasury bills (T-Bills) and similar low-risk, interest-bearing securities.
The DeFi vaults issue BUIDL depositors LSTs called sBUIDL, Elixer said.
“BUIDL holders can now mint sBUIDL and use it to access DeFi via deUSD, all while continuing to earn the underlying yield. $1B in RWA liquidity just became unlocked,” RWA.xyz, an RWA database, said in an X post.
On Nov. 13, Blackrock launched BUIDL on several additional blockchain networks, including Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon.
“With these new chains we’ll start to see more investors looking to leverage the underlying technology to increase efficiencies on all the things that until now have been hard to do,” Carlos Domingo, Securitize’s CEO, said in a statement.
Demand is surging for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) offering low-risk yield from T-Bills and other money market instruments.
Tokenized US treasury debt commands approximately $2.4 billion in total value locked as of Nov. 19, according to RWA.xyz.
BUIDL is the largest tokenized treasury fund in terms of assets under management (AUM), followed by Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX), with AUM of approximately $540 million and $450 million, respectively.
Launching across multiple chains enables “BUIDL to be used within leading blockchain-based financial products and infrastructure across ecosystems,” BlackRock said.
Tokenized RWAs — from T-Bills to artworks — represent a $30-trillion market opportunity globally, Colin Butler, Polygon’s global head of institutional capital, told Cointelegraph in August.
“Tokenization can potentially improve liquidity in the trading of Treasuries by reducing operational and settlement frictions,” according to the United States Department of the Treasury’s Q4 2024 report.”