The world's largest asset manager and the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange announced a landmark partnership Friday that will allow institutional traders to use BlackRock's tokenized U.S. Treasury fund as collateral for trading while simultaneously expanding the product's blockchain footprint to include BNB Chain.
BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), tokenized by Securitize, will now be accepted as off-exchange collateral for institutional trading on Binance, the firms announced in a joint press release.
The integration enables sophisticated traders to post BUIDL tokens with custody partners rather than directly on the exchange while maintaining full trading capabilities on the platform.
The development represents a significant milestone for tokenized real-world assets, which have emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments in digital finance. BUIDL, which has accumulated $2.5 billion in assets since its March 2024 launch, now operates across eight major blockchain networks and commands approximately 34% of the tokenized U.S. Treasury market.
Institutional Demand Drives Integration
Catherine Chen, head of VIP and institutional services at Binance, said the collateral integration directly responds to client demand for yield-generating assets that comply with regulatory frameworks while supporting active trading strategies.
"Our institutional clients have asked for more interest-bearing stable assets they can hold as collateral while actively trading on our exchange," Chen stated. "Integrating BUIDL with our banking triparty partners and our crypto-native custody partner, Ceffu, meets their needs and enables our clients to confidently scale allocation while meeting compliance requirements."
The off-exchange collateral structure allows traders to maintain custody of BUIDL tokens through approved partners while still accessing Binance's trading infrastructure. This arrangement addresses institutional concerns around direct exchange custody while preserving capital efficiency—a critical consideration for firms managing large portfolios.
Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo emphasized that BUIDL's appeal extends beyond yield generation. Exchanges and trading platforms view tokenized Treasury products as high-quality collateral that can support increased borrowing capacity, creating additional leverage opportunities for sophisticated market participants.
"In capital markets, every transaction involves updating a ledger. Right now, the ledgers are built on software from the 1970s, and the process is siloed," Domingo told Fortune. "In contrast, blockchains are easy to access and can settle trades almost instantly."
BNB Chain Expansion Broadens Ecosystem Access
Parallel to the Binance integration, BlackRock launched a new share class of BUIDL on BNB Chain, marking the fund's eighth blockchain deployment. The expansion positions BUIDL within one of the world's most active blockchain ecosystems, known for high throughput, low transaction costs, and compatibility with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) applications.
Sarah Song, head of business development at BNB Chain, described BUIDL as a transformative product for on-chain finance infrastructure.
"BNB Chain is designed for scalable, low-cost, and secure financial applications, and we're excited to welcome BUIDL to our ecosystem," Song said. "BUIDL is turning real-world assets into programmable financial instruments, enabling entirely new types of investment strategies on-chain."
The BNB Chain integration allows investors and decentralized finance protocols operating within that ecosystem to access BUIDL's yield-generating capabilities. The fund maintains a stable $1 per token value and distributes daily accrued dividends directly to investor wallets as new tokens each month, providing consistent returns tied to underlying U.S. Treasury holdings.
BUIDL now operates across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Aptos, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon, Solana, and BNB Chain—a multi-chain strategy designed to maximize accessibility for institutional investors regardless of their preferred blockchain infrastructure.
Explosive Growth Since Launch
BlackRock launched BUIDL in March 2024 as the asset manager's first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain. The product's growth trajectory has exceeded industry expectations, reaching $1 billion in assets within months and continuing to scale rapidly throughout 2025.
The fund attracted $245 million in its first week of operation. By July 2024, assets under management approached $500 million. The billion-dollar threshold was crossed in March 2025, and current holdings exceed $2.5 billion—representing 240% growth in less than eight months.
This rapid accumulation has positioned BUIDL as the dominant player in tokenized U.S. Treasuries, surpassing competitors including Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund ($750 million) and Ondo Finance's USDY product ($650 million). Market data from RWA.xyz shows BUIDL commanding approximately 34% of the tokenized Treasury market as of mid-2025.
Access to BUIDL remains restricted to qualified purchasers—institutional investors, private equity firms, and hedge funds capable of meeting a $5 million minimum investment threshold. The fund operates under Rule 506(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 and is excepted from Investment Company Act registration under Section 3(c)(7).
Tokenized RWA Market Reaches Critical Mass
The Binance integration arrives as tokenized real-world assets transition from experimental pilots to scaled institutional deployment. The broader RWA market has experienced explosive growth, expanding from approximately $5 billion in 2022 to over $24 billion by mid-2025—a 380% increase in three years.
Tokenized U.S. Treasuries represent the fastest-growing segment within RWAs, surging 539% from January 2024 to April 2025 to reach approximately $7.5 billion in total market capitalization. This asset class has found particularly strong product-market fit among DeFi protocols seeking compliant yield-generating reserves and institutions managing idle cash balances.
Private credit dominates the broader RWA landscape at 58% market share ($14 billion), followed by U.S. Treasuries at 34% ($8.2 billion). Real estate tokenization, commodities, equity tokens, and carbon credits comprise the remaining categories.
Industry forecasts project massive expansion ahead. Standard Chartered estimates the tokenized asset market could reach $30 trillion by 2034, while McKinsey's conservative projection suggests $2-4 trillion by 2030. Boston Consulting Group has published even more aggressive estimates suggesting 10% of global GDP—approximately $16 trillion—could be tokenized within the decade.
Strategic Positioning for Digital Asset Convergence
BlackRock's global head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, framed the Binance partnership as part of a broader strategy to bridge traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure.
"By enabling BUIDL to operate as collateral across leading digital market infrastructure, we're helping bring foundational elements of traditional finance into the onchain finance arena," Mitchnick stated. "This milestone highlights our continued focus on transforming tokenization from concept to practical market utility."
The integration with Binance—which serves more than 290 million users across 100-plus countries—dramatically expands BUIDL's potential reach among institutional and sophisticated retail traders. The exchange's institutional division has prioritized partnerships with traditional finance providers as part of efforts to capture growing demand for regulated digital asset products.
Securitize, which serves as transfer agent and tokenization platform for BUIDL, manages more than $4 billion in assets across partnerships with major asset managers including Apollo, Hamilton Lane, KKR, and VanEck. The firm operates as an SEC-registered broker-dealer, digital transfer agent, and alternative trading system, providing end-to-end infrastructure for institutional tokenization.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has repeatedly stated that "the next generation for markets will be the tokenization of securities," positioning the asset manager at the forefront of blockchain adoption among traditional financial institutions. The firm's digital asset strategy emphasizes solving practical client problems through tokenization rather than pursuing speculative cryptocurrency investments.
Final thoughts
The BUIDL integration establishes important precedents for how tokenized securities can function within crypto trading infrastructure. Off-exchange collateral arrangements allow institutions to benefit from blockchain-based assets while maintaining custody relationships with established financial services providers - a critical bridge between traditional and decentralized finance.
As tokenized Treasury products gain adoption as collateral across trading platforms, exchanges, and DeFi protocols, they increasingly function as a new category of yield-bearing stablecoin alternatives. These instruments offer institutional-grade counterparty risk, regulatory compliance, and transparent on-chain settlement - addressing longstanding concerns about stablecoin reserve opacity and issuer credibility.
The parallel expansion to BNB Chain reinforces the trend toward multi-chain deployment strategies. Rather than committing exclusively to a single blockchain, major issuers are distributing tokenized products across multiple networks to maximize accessibility and capture liquidity wherever institutional demand emerges. This approach mirrors how traditional securities trade across multiple exchanges and clearinghouses, bringing similar infrastructure redundancy to blockchain-based markets.
For Binance, the BUIDL integration strengthens its position in institutional digital asset services amid intense competition from established financial infrastructure providers entering the cryptocurrency space. The partnership signals that major exchanges can successfully collaborate with Wall Street's largest players to deliver sophisticated financial products that meet institutional compliance requirements.
As tokenized real-world assets continue scaling toward trillion-dollar markets, partnerships between traditional finance giants and crypto-native platforms are likely to proliferate, fundamentally reshaping how capital markets operate and how institutional investors access blockchain-based financial instruments.