BlackRock Wants Crypto Exchanges to Accept BUIDL Token as Collateral

The “big guy” BlackRock is looking to add more uses to the BUIDL token by inviting crypto exchanges to accept it as collateral.

According to Bloomberg, the financial giant BlackRock and its partner Securitize have sent a letter to leading crypto exchanges, including Binance, OKX and Deribit, with a proposal to use the BUIDL token issued by the group as collateral for futures trading.

BUIDL is the token representing BlackRock’s Real World Asset (RWA) fund, which was launched in March this year. This fund invests directly in US Treasury bonds to generate interest for investors. The BUIDL token issued by the fund will be considered a certificate of deposit in the fund, and its value will be maintained against the US dollar similar to stablecoins.

As of writing, BUIDL remains the world’s largest tokenized real asset fund with a market capitalization of $547 million. However, BUIDL is only open to institutional investors, with a minimum investment of $5 million.

BlackRock, Binance, OKX, and Deribit all declined to confirm the Bloomberg report.

Two of the largest crypto brokerages, FalconX and Hidden Road, have now enabled the use of BUIDL tokens as collateral.

Expanding the BUIDL token to the world’s largest crypto exchanges, such as Binance, OKX, and Deribit, would significantly increase the utility of this RWA product, helping BlackRock not only unlock liquidity but also potentially attract new investment flows. BlackRock's BUIDL token could even become a direct competitor to the current leading stablecoins including USDT and USDC, two names widely used as collateral and means of transferring value in the derivatives segment in particular and crypto trading in general.

The latest report from CCData shows that the derivatives sector accounts for 70% of the total global crypto trading volume, worth $3 trillion. However, that figure has halved compared to the peak period in March 2024, when Bitcoin prices set a new record.

In recent times, there have been constant rumors about financial giants from Western countries “signaling” their participation in the stablecoin sector, including BBVA, Revolut, Robinhood, State Street, PayPal with PYUSD,...

In addition, the cryptocurrency market has also witnessed the emergence of many new stablecoin projects, including Ethena’s UStb, using BlackRock’s BUIDL fund as collateral; BitGo’s USDS; Sky’s USDS (MakerDAO); DWF Labs’ algorithmic stablecoin; Ripple’s RLUSD; Elixir’s deUSD;…