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Tokenized US Treasuries 2026: BUIDL, BENJI, OUSG, USTB and the $7B On-Chain Yield Dashboard

TL;DR

  • Tokenized US Treasuries are blockchain tokens that represent legal claims on US Treasury bills, money-market-fund shares, or repurchase agreements held by a regulated bank custodian. The on-chain market reached roughly US$7B+ AUM by April 2026, up from under US$1B in January 2024.
  • BlackRock BUIDL (US$2.5B AUM, launched March 2024) is the dominant institutional tokenized MMF; Securitize is transfer agent and BNY Mellon is custodian. It is live on Ethereum plus five other chains.
  • Ondo USDY (US$700M+) is the largest permissionless retail-style product; Franklin BENJI (~US$500M), Ondo OUSG (US$300M), Hashnote/Circle USYC (~US$200M), Superstate USTB (US$150M) and Mountain USDM (US$150M) round out the top six.
  • Tokenized treasuries serve four functions in 2026: stablecoin reserves (Sky USDS, Frax sFRAX, Ethena USDtb), DAO treasury management, DeFi lending collateral, and yield-bearing wallet balances for non-US retail.

Table of contents

What are tokenized US Treasuries?

Tokenized US Treasuries are ERC-20 (or Solana SPL, Aptos coin, Stellar asset) tokens that represent a legal claim — typically a beneficial interest in a fund vehicle — backed 1:1 by a portfolio of short-duration US Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and cash held by a regulated US custodian. The token is the on-chain "twin" of an off-chain money-market-fund share. The investor's claim is enforceable in the same court system that enforces a traditional fund certificate; the difference is that the cap table is mirrored — and in some products held authoritatively — on a public blockchain, with the regulated transfer agent (Securitize, Tokeny, ADDX) keeping the on-chain ledger in sync with the off-chain register.

In plain terms: a tokenized Treasury is still a Treasury — the token is a 24/7, programmable, peer-to-peer wrapper. Yield from the underlying T-bills accrues daily and is paid either by minting fresh tokens to holders (a "rebase"), by NAV appreciation per token (an "accumulating" share class), or by a daily USDC/cash distribution. Redemption happens at NAV with the transfer agent on T+0 to T+5 settlement.

Most products use one of three regulatory wrappers:

Why 2024 was the inflection year

The category has a clean before/after line: March 20, 2024 — the day BlackRock launched BUIDL on Ethereum. In the weeks before, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink had written that "the next generation for markets, the next generation for securities, will be tokenization of securities." Coming from the CEO of a US$11T asset manager, that statement reframed tokenization from a crypto novelty into a strategic priority for the largest allocator in the world.

Three macro factors made BUIDL the inflection product rather than just another launch:

  1. Higher rates made on-chain T-bills economically interesting for the first time. With SOFR above 5% from mid-2023 through 2024, tokenized money market funds offered DeFi protocols and DAO treasuries 4-5% yield against zero-yielding USDC/USDT.
  2. Stablecoin issuers needed yield-bearing reserves. Sky / MakerDAO had begun rotating DAI/USDS reserves into Treasury-backed RWAs as early as 2022; by 2024, Frax, Ethena, Sky and Spark were collectively holding more than US$2B in tokenized treasuries.
  3. Settlement infrastructure matured — Securitize earned SEC transfer-agent registration and SEC-registered broker-dealer status; Anchorage Digital operated as a federally chartered crypto trust bank; BNY Mellon custodied the off-chain leg of BUIDL and several follow-on products.

How tokenized Treasury issuance works

A typical institutional issuance has six layers:

  1. Issuer / sponsor — the asset manager (BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Ondo, Superstate, Hashnote, VanEck, Apollo, Hamilton Lane, KKR, abrdn, UBS, Brevan Howard, WisdomTree).
  2. Fund vehicle — Delaware statutory trust, Cayman segregated portfolio company, BVI mutual fund, or Bermuda segregated accounts company.
  3. Transfer agent and broker-dealer — Securitize for most US institutional deals, Tokeny for ERC-3643 European deals, ADDX for APAC accredited.
  4. Custodian — BNY Mellon for BUIDL, Anchorage Digital for several on-chain legs, Coinbase Custody for Ondo, plus State Street and Citi for institutional shares.
  5. Token contract — typically ERC-20 with transfer restrictions enforced via ERC-3643 (T-REX), ERC-1400 partitions, or a bespoke whitelist.
  6. Distribution and DeFi rails — secondary trading on Securitize Markets, Spark Liquidity Layer, DEX listings (USDY, BENJI on Solana), and integrations with lending and prime-brokerage protocols.

BlackRock BUIDL

BlackRock BUIDL — full name BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, ticker BUIDL — launched March 20, 2024 on Ethereum with a US$5M minimum subscription (later effectively reduced via feeders to US$100K). The fund holds short-dated US Treasury bills, repurchase agreements, and cash. Yield is distributed daily to token-holders via rebase minting. Securitize is the SEC-registered transfer agent and placement agent; BNY Mellon is custodian and fund administrator.

In November 2024 BUIDL went multichain — adding Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism and Polygon — bringing total chain coverage to six. BUIDL grew rapidly after launch — crossing the US$1B milestone in 2025 — and is approximately US$2.5B by April 2026, making it the largest single tokenized money-market fund on any blockchain. Major holders include Sky / MakerDAO, Spark Protocol, Ondo Finance (as the underlying for OUSG), Frax, Ethena (as USDtb backing), and several centralized exchanges as institutional-grade margin collateral.

Franklin Templeton BENJI / FOBXX

The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund — ticker FOBXX, app brand BENJI — was the first US-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain for transfer-agency record-keeping, going live in April 2021 on Stellar. It has since expanded to Polygon, Solana, Avalanche, Aptos, Arbitrum, Base and Ethereum. Unlike BUIDL it is open to accredited US retail at a US$20 minimum via the Benji app. AUM is approximately US$500M-1B by 2026. Franklin Templeton has more than US$1.5T in firm-wide AUM, making it among the most credentialed traditional issuers of an on-chain product.

Ondo Finance: OUSG and USDY

Ondo Finance, founded in 2021 by ex-Goldman Sachs digital-assets staff, runs two flagship products:

Ondo Global Markets, launched January 2025, extends the rail to tokenized US equities and ETFs. Ondo Chain, announced February 2025, is a purpose-built RWA L1 launching in 2026.

Superstate USTB

Superstate, founded by Compound creator Robert Leshner, launched USTB in April 2024 as an SEC-registered Investment Company Act of 1940 mutual fund whose share register is maintained on Ethereum. USTB targets US qualified-purchaser money — a different niche from BUIDL's institutional accredited base — and exceeds US$150M AUM by 2026. Superstate also runs USCC, a crypto basis-trade fund, and has filed for tokenized US equity products.

Hashnote / Circle USYC

Hashnote's USYC (Hashnote International Short Duration Yield Fund) is a Cayman SPC-wrapped tokenized cash-management fund originally seeded by Cumberland and DRW. Circle, the issuer of USDC, acquired Hashnote in January 2025, making USYC the cornerstone of Circle's institutional yield offering and the collateral asset behind regulated derivatives venues including Coinbase's CFTC-licensed perpetuals platform. AUM is roughly US$200M in April 2026.

Mountain Protocol USDM

Mountain Protocol, a Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA)-licensed digital-asset issuer, launched USDM — a permissioned yield-bearing stablecoin backed 1:1 by short-duration US Treasuries — in 2023. USDM was acquired by Anchorage Digital in May 2025, integrating it into Anchorage's federally-chartered trust-bank custody stack. AUM is roughly US$150M by April 2026.

OpenEden TBILL

OpenEden is a Singapore/BVI issuer launched in 2023, recognised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under Project Guardian. Its flagship TBILL Fund holds short-dated Treasuries through a BVI fund vehicle; sister products include HYBOND (corporate IG bond fund) and USDO (a yield-bearing stablecoin). TBILL AUM exceeds US$60M by 2026 and is heavily integrated into Asian institutional flows.

VanEck VBILL

VanEck, one of the oldest US ETF brands, launched VBILL — its on-chain Treasury fund — in 2025, custodied through a major US trust bank with Securitize as transfer agent. By April 2026 VBILL holds approximately US$25M AUM and represents the most accessible "ETF-brand" entry point for on-chain Treasury allocation. VanEck's parallel filings for spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs make it one of the few firms offering both wrapped-on-chain and ETF-on-CEX products at scale.

Spiko EUTBL and USTBL

Spiko is a French issuer focused on MiCA-compliant tokenized European and US Treasury MMFs. Its two products — EUTBL (Eurozone short-dated sovereign debt) and USTBL (US T-bills) — are live on Polygon, Arbitrum, Solana and Starknet. Spiko targets European corporate and DAO treasuries that need MiCA-aligned cash management, a niche that Anglo-American issuers cannot directly serve.

MatrixDock STBT

MatrixDock, the digital-asset arm of Singapore's Matrixport, runs STBT — Short-term Treasury Bill Token — a permissioned tokenized Treasury fund for accredited Asian investors, plus XAUM (gold). STBT AUM is approximately US$120M by 2026.

Maple Cash, Apollo ACRED, Hamilton Lane SCOPE, KKR, abrdn, Brevan Howard / Libre

Beyond pure-play Treasury MMFs, traditional alternatives managers have launched tokenized fund feeders that include Treasury-only or Treasury-heavy strategies:

UBS uMINT and WisdomTree Government MMF

Tokenization platforms: Securitize, Tokeny, Polymesh, Provenance, ADDX

The tokenization platform layer is consolidating around five providers:

Custodians: BNY Mellon, Coinbase Custody, Anchorage

Distribution chains

Ethereum hosts the largest share of tokenized-Treasury TVL because Securitize and most institutional issuers default to Ethereum mainnet. Solana hosts USDY, BENJI and Apollo ACRED. Polygon hosts BENJI, UBS uMINT, Hamilton Lane SCOPE and Spiko USTBL. Stellar hosts the original FOBXX deployment plus WisdomTree Government MMF. Aptos hosts BUIDL, BENJI and ACRED. Other chains: Arbitrum, Avalanche, Sui, Optimism, Base, Mantle, Plume, MANTRA, and Starknet (Spiko EUTBL).

Use cases — stablecoin backing, DAO treasury, DeFi yield

  1. Stablecoin reserves. Sky / MakerDAO's USDS is partially backed by RWA-allocated reserves managed via Spark Protocol. Frax sFRAX accrues yield from BUIDL and USDM. Ethena USDtb is fully backed by BUIDL.
  2. DAO and corporate treasury. Arbitrum DAO, Wintermute, Aave DAO, ENS DAO, Lido DAO and Optimism Foundation have all rotated portions of stablecoin treasuries into tokenized MMFs since mid-2024.
  3. DeFi lending collateral. Aave Horizon, Spark Liquidity Layer, Morpho RWA vaults and Maple all accept BUIDL, USYC or USDY as institutional collateral in 2026.
  4. Yield-bearing wallet balances for non-US retail via USDY, USDM, USTBL and TBILL, replacing zero-yield USDT/USDC for offshore users.

Comparison table — every major tokenized Treasury product

Product Issuer AUM (Apr 2026) Primary chain Custodian Transfer agent Min subscription Yield mechanism Wrapper
BUIDL BlackRock US$2.5B Ethereum + 5 BNY Mellon Securitize US$5M (institutional) Daily rebase Reg D, BVI feeder
USDY Ondo Finance US$700M+ Ethereum + 8 Coinbase Custody Ankura US$500 NAV accrual BVI bearer note
BENJI / FOBXX Franklin Templeton US$500M-1B Stellar + 7 State Street Franklin TA US$20 Daily rebase 1940 Act MMF
OUSG Ondo Finance US$300M Ethereum + 5 Coinbase Custody Securitize US$100K NAV accrual Reg D fund
USYC Hashnote / Circle US$200M Ethereum, Solana Anchorage Digital Hashnote TA US$100K NAV accrual Cayman SPC
USTB Superstate US$150M Ethereum US trust bank Superstate TA US$100K Daily rebase 1940 Act mutual fund
USDM Mountain / Anchorage US$150M Ethereum + multi Anchorage Digital Mountain US$100 (KYC) Daily rebase BMA Bermuda
STBT MatrixDock US$120M Ethereum Matrixport MatrixDock US$100K NAV accrual Singapore fund
TBILL OpenEden US$60M+ Ethereum, multi Standard Chartered OpenEden US$100K NAV accrual BVI fund
uMINT UBS Asset Mgmt US$50M Polygon UBS UBS TA Institutional NAV accrual UCITS-like
VBILL VanEck US$25M Ethereum + multi US trust bank Securitize US$100K Daily rebase Reg D fund
EUTBL/USTBL Spiko n/a (growing) Polygon, Arb, Sol, Starknet Spiko Trust Spiko EUR/USD 1,000 NAV accrual MiCA-compliant SICAV
ACRED Apollo / Securitize US$100M+ (credit) Ethereum + 5 BNY Mellon Securitize US$50K NAV accrual Reg D feeder
SCOPE Hamilton Lane n/a Polygon State Street Securitize US$10K NAV accrual Reg D feeder
HCSI KKR n/a Avalanche State Street Securitize US$100K NAV accrual Reg D feeder
Maple Cash Maple Finance US$200M+ Ethereum, Base Maple custodian Maple US$100K NAV accrual Cayman SPC

Risks

The principal risks of holding tokenized Treasuries:

  1. Smart contract risk in the token, vault and any cross-chain bridge layer.
  2. Regulatory risk — a regulator could re-characterise a wrapper or freeze redemption.
  3. Custodian and counterparty risk at the bank or prime broker holding the underlying T-bills.
  4. Thin secondary liquidity — for most products, redemption with the issuer is the primary exit; on-chain DEX liquidity is shallow except for USDY and BENJI on Solana.
  5. Transfer-restriction risk — issuers can freeze wallets via ERC-3643 or whitelist contracts.
  6. Cross-chain bridge risk for multichain products (e.g. USDY across nine chains).
  7. Jurisdictional change risk for non-US holders if their domicile re-classifies the wrapper.

How to access tokenized Treasuries

  1. Institutional / accredited US: open an account with Securitize, complete KYC and accreditation, then subscribe directly to BUIDL, OUSG, ACRED, SCOPE, HCSI, USTB or VBILL.
  2. Non-US KYC retail: use the Ondo onboarding flow for USDY, Mountain for USDM, OpenEden for TBILL, or Spiko for EUTBL/USTBL.
  3. DeFi wallet exposure (no KYC): buy permissionless tokens (USDY, USDM, USTBL) on DEXs like Uniswap, Jupiter or Curve — but read the issuer's transfer-restriction notes carefully because some wallets can be frozen.
  4. Stablecoin holders: hold yield-bearing stablecoins backed by tokenized Treasuries — sFRAX, USDtb, sUSDS — to gain indirect exposure.

Research and reports

FAQ

What are tokenized US Treasuries?

See the answer in the FAQ frontmatter — they are blockchain tokens representing legal claims on T-bills, MMF shares or repos held by a regulated custodian; the on-chain market reached roughly US$7B+ AUM by April 2026.

What is BlackRock BUIDL?

BUIDL is the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, launched March 2024, with US$2.5B AUM by April 2026, transferred via Securitize, custodied at BNY Mellon, live on six chains.

How does Ondo OUSG differ from Ondo USDY?

OUSG is a permissioned accredited US fund whose underlying assets are mainly BUIDL and BENJI; USDY is a permissionless yield-bearing note for non-US KYC retail with US$700M+ outstanding.

What is Franklin Templeton BENJI/FOBXX?

The first US-registered fund to use a public blockchain for transfer agency (April 2021 on Stellar); now multichain with US$500M-1B AUM.

What is Superstate USTB?

A 1940 Act SEC-registered MMF whose share register is on Ethereum, founded by Compound creator Robert Leshner; US$150M AUM.

What is Hashnote USYC?

The Hashnote International Short Duration Yield Fund, acquired by Circle in January 2025; US$200M AUM, used as collateral for Coinbase regulated derivatives.

How big is the tokenized Treasury market in 2026?

Roughly US$7B+ AUM in April 2026, up from <US$1B in early 2024.

What chains are tokenized Treasuries deployed on?

Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Stellar, Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Sui, Optimism, Base, Mantle, Plume, MANTRA and Starknet.

What are tokenized Treasuries used for in DeFi?

Stablecoin reserves, DAO treasury management, lending-protocol collateral, and yield-bearing wallet balances.

What are the main risks?

Smart contract, regulatory, custodian, secondary liquidity, transfer-restriction and bridge risks.

Glossary

Sources and further reading

About the author

DeFi Intel Research is the in-house research team at DeFi Intel, focused on on-chain capital markets, tokenized real-world assets, MEV and DeFi infrastructure. We track every major tokenized Treasury product weekly and publish dashboards covering AUM, chain coverage, yield, regulatory wrapper and on-chain integrations.

Last updated: 2026-04-26

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