BlackRock Files to Launch Digital Shares Tracking $150M Treasury Money Market Fund

Global asset management giant BlackRock has taken another step toward integrating blockchain into traditional finance with a new regulatory filing to create digital ledger technology (DLT) shares for one of its flagship money market funds. The fund in question, the BLF Treasury Trust Fund (TTTXX), currently holds over $150 million in assets, primarily in short-term U.S. Treasury bills and cash equivalents.

According to the April 29 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BlackRock aims to issue DLT shares that will use blockchain to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for institutional clients. These digital shares will not be tokenized in the conventional crypto sense but will instead serve as an enhanced transparency layer, offering verifiable digital records without altering the underlying structure of share custody and transfer.

BlackRock emphasized that the official ownership records will continue to be managed through traditional book-entry systems. However, The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), which will serve as the distributor and custodian, plans to use blockchain to mirror these records — marking one of the most prominent examples of a major financial institution deploying blockchain in parallel with legacy systems.

The DLT shares are exclusively available through BlackRock Advisors and BNY Mellon, with a minimum initial investment of $3 million, targeting institutional investors. The filing did not specify a ticker symbol or disclose the management fees for this new share class.

This filing comes amid a broader wave of experimentation among Wall Street heavyweights exploring blockchain’s potential to modernize financial infrastructure. In March 2024, Fidelity Investments filed to offer an Ethereum-based OnChain share class for its $80 million Fidelity Treasury Digital Fund (FYHXX), a product also designed to provide investors exposure to tokenized U.S. Treasury assets. Fidelity’s filing is currently pending regulatory approval and is expected to become effective on May 30.

BlackRock’s latest initiative builds on the success of its tokenized fund offering, the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), which has already become the world’s largest tokenized treasury product with over $2.55 billion in assets under management. BUIDL is part of a growing $6.16 billion market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries, according to real-world asset tracking platform rwa.xyz.

Ethereum continues to dominate this space, hosting over $4.55 billion worth of tokenized treasury assets. Other blockchains are also emerging in the sector, with Stellar supporting approximately $474.9 million and Solana accounting for $274.5 million in tokenized treasuries. Notably, Franklin Templeton’s Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (BENJI) has also gained significant traction, managing over $700 million worth of real-world assets using blockchain infrastructure.

This strategic pivot toward blockchain-enabled transparency aligns with public statements made by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who has repeatedly expressed strong support for the tokenization of real-world assets. Fink believes tokenization can dramatically increase efficiency, reduce settlement times, and lower operational risks in the global financial system — potentially revolutionizing the way institutional investors interact with traditional markets.

In that context, BlackRock’s DLT shares may serve as a stepping stone toward wider institutional acceptance of blockchain-backed financial instruments. While these shares are not themselves crypto tokens, their blockchain-based mirror record system is a meaningful nod toward the convergence of decentralized technologies with conventional finance.

As regulatory clarity continues to evolve, and as institutional appetite for blockchain-integrated products grows, BlackRock’s digital shares may represent a significant milestone in the gradual modernization of asset management — combining the reliability of legacy systems with the transparency and efficiency of blockchain.