BlackRock Bets Big: $150B Treasury Fund Goes Blockchain via BNY Mellon

Wall Street’s quiet embrace of crypto gets louder—BlackRock plans to tokenize shares of its flagship treasury fund, partnering with banking giant BNY Mellon. The move could flood institutional portfolios with blockchain-based exposure while keeping regulators at arm’s length (for now).

Why it matters: Tokenization isn’t just for DeFi degens anymore. When the world’s largest asset manager pivots toward on-chain finance, even the skeptics check their wallets.

The fine print: Expect the usual dance—’innovation’ framed as efficiency gains, not a challenge to the system. After all, nothing disrupts like a 216-year-old bank helping a $10 trillion firm cut settlement times.

Asset management giant BlackRock has filed a prospectus to introduce "DLT shares" for its substantial $150 billion Treasury Trust fund, a money market fund focused on short-term US Treasury obligations, The Block reported on Tuesday. These digital shares, with ownership tracked using distributed ledger technology (DLT), will be exclusively available through BNY Mellon.

The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday revealed that while the fund itself does not currently invest in crypto assets or directly utilize blockchain, BNY Mellon intends to use the technology to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for its institutional clients holding the DLT shares. The minimum initial investment for these digital shares is set at $3 million for institutions, with no minimum for subsequent investments. Traditional book-entry records will remain BlackRock’s official ownership ledger.

This move aligns with previous statements from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who has publicly expressed his belief that asset tokenization has the potential to "revolutionize" investing by enabling faster settlements, fractional ownership, and more democratic access to yield. While acknowledging current limitations in identity verification for tokenized assets, Fink anticipates that tokenized funds will eventually become commonplace.

The prospectus for BlackRock’s DLT shares remains subject to SEC review and potential changes.