BlackRock Partners with BNY Mellon to Launch Blockchain-Based Share Class for $150B Treasury Trust Fund
BlackRock has teamed up with BNY Mellon to introduce a new class of shares for its $150 billion Treasury Trust money market fund, utilizing blockchain technology in the back office. The two firms filed to offer a digital share class of the fund through BNY Mellon, marking a significant move toward integrating blockchain into traditional finance.
The new “DLT Shares” (Distributed Ledger Technology Shares) won’t involve cryptocurrency but will use blockchain to replicate share ownership records. This innovation is seen as a step forward in the potential mainstream adoption of tokenized cash, digital assets, and blockchain-based settlement infrastructure within traditional financial markets.
In recent years, more financial institutions have been exploring the use of blockchain for tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs), blending the worlds of traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi). Just earlier on Wednesday, Libre announced it would tokenize $500 million of Telegram’s $2.4 billion debt, bringing it to the TON blockchain.
BlackRock’s Liquidity Treasury Trust Fund is part of the firm’s Liquidity Funds suite and managed over $150 billion in assets as of April 29. The new DLT share class will have a $3 million minimum investment requirement for institutional buyers, with no minimum for additional purchases. The SEC filing is still in the preliminary stages and pending approval.
This is not BlackRock’s first venture into tokenization. The firm’s blockchain-focused BUIDL fund, developed in partnership with Securitize, currently manages more than $1.7 billion in assets and has recently expanded its operations onto the Solana blockchain.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has long advocated for the transformative potential of tokenization and decentralized finance. In his 2025 annual letter to shareholders, Fink emphasized the risks the U.S. faces in maintaining its financial dominance unless it manages its debt, which could drive investors toward alternatives like Bitcoin (BTC).
“If the U.S. doesn’t get its debt under control, America risks losing its status as the world’s reserve currency to digital assets like Bitcoin,” Fink wrote. “Decentralized finance is a groundbreaking innovation, making markets faster, cheaper, and more transparent. But this same innovation could challenge America’s economic edge.”
