BlackRock’s BUIDL Investors Can Now Convert Shares to USDC
Circle, a P2P payment company and manager of the USDC stablecoin has introduced a new technology that enables BlackRock’s BUIDL (BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity) investors to convert their shares to its stablecoin.
The blockchain-focused payment company made this known earlier today via a press release. According to the statement, the new smart contract functionality provides BUIDL investors with a fast, transparent, and efficient way to convert their shares to USDC, ensuring they have access to the service 24/7.
The smart contract allows for the ‘frictionless transfer’ of BUIDL shares to Circle on the secondary market. This new development underscores a major step in integrating traditional finance with fast-growing digital assets.
Speaking on this development, the Co-founder and CEO of Circle, Jeremy Allaire acknowledged the rapidly emerging product category of tokenizing real-world assets. He expressed the company’s joy in providing the functionality to BlackRock.
“Tokenizing assets is but one important dimension of solving investor pain points,” … “We’re thrilled to provide this functionality to BUIDL investors and deliver the core benefits of blockchain transactions via USDC availability to investors,” he said.
BlackRock’s BUIDL introduces a new form of asset investment
In March 2024, BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, introduced BUIDL, a tokenized fund built on the Ethereum network to offer the United States dollar yield through the tokenization of financial assets. Investors can buy tokens that represent fund shares with the ERC-20 token BUIDL. The fund primarily is to make safe investments, like the US Treasury bills.
It is important to note that BlackRock is one of the largest Bitcoin owners in the world, holding over 266,000 BTC (worth more than $18.5 billion at press time), and BUIDL is the first tokenized fund introduced by the investment giant.
The most recent partnership between BlackRock and Circle comes after years of cooperation in the cryptocurrency space. To manage a portion of the USDC reserves in collaboration with BlackRock, Circle began investing in the Circle Reserve Fund in 2022. The company anticipated that it would remain composed of 80% short-term US Treasuries and 20% cash.