BlackRock’s Billion-Dollar Blockchain Bet: Is Your Next Treasury Cash Actually Digital?

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In a move destined to delight finance nerds and terrify anyone who still uses paper checks, BlackRock is dabbling in blockchain with all the subtlety of a toddler rearranging family heirlooms. The firm, which manages $150 billion in its Treasury Trust Fund (that’s billion, with a B—that’s like the entire GDP of a mid-sized European country), is tiptoeing into the 21st century via a digital share class called DLT Shares.

Word of this development arrived courtesy of Bloomberg ETF analyst Henry Jim. Imagine him, if you will, squinting at filings so the rest of us don’t have to, like a financial Indiana Jones but with slightly more caffeine and significantly fewer gigantic rolling boulders. 🧑‍💼 DLT Shares, he reports, will be purchasable only through BNY Mellon, which expects to keep track of everything using blockchain technology. Very modern. Minimum investment: $3 million. If you’re peeking under your couch cushions right now—stop, you’ll need to check a few more couches.

Wow! BlackRock filed for Digital share class (DLT Shares) of their $150 billion money market fund (not an ETF)

BlackRock Liquidity Funds | DLT Shares
ticker/fees: tba

The DLT Shares are to be sold via BNY Mellon only, who intend to use Blockchain to mirror ownership, possibly…

— ETF Hearsay by Henry Jim (@ETFhearsay) April 29, 2025

The genius of the Treasury Trust Fund is that it packs its colossal piggy bank mostly with cash and bits of government IOUs, ensuring your digital sawbucks keep clinging to that magical $1 value. It’s very reassuring, in the way airbags and warm soup are. This might all be a cunning plan to test if blockchain tech can move your digital coins around in the background, or maybe it’s just BlackRock flexing for the cool kids at crypto lunch. 🤔

If you’re hoping they slip in some “fun, risky stuff” like NFTs of Larry Fink riding a unicorn, you’ll be disappointed. The fund is strictly no-nonsense, boring-on-purpose, and will definitely send you a sternly worded memo if anyone tries anything too wild. As of April 29, 2025, the assets remain a very healthy $150.1 billion, which is roughly the amount you’d need if you wanted to buy Luxembourg and tip generously.

Larry Fink Says Tokenization Could Reshape Finance

Now to Larry “Big Ideas” Fink himself. He’s all in on tokenization. In a recent letter to investors, mostly read by people in pinstripe suits, he said tokenization could transform investing by making transactions as swift and smooth as a buttered otter sliding down a log. Theoretically, this means your money wouldn’t just sit there doing nothing; it could be zipped straight back into the economy before you’ve finished your coffee.

But, of course, there’s always a catch. (There’s always a catch. Wouldn’t be finance without one.) Fink points out that the problem with turning all these assets into tokens is proving people are, well, who they say they are. Once Wall Street figures out an acceptable way to check IDs without holding your driver’s license up to a webcam, Larry imagines tokenized funds could be as bog-standard as ETFs. BlackRock isn’t alone either—JP Morgan, State Street, and Franklin Templeton are all loitering in the blockchain aisle, looking for the secret sauce. 🚀

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2025-04-30 06:27