FIFTEEN BILLION DOLLARS RUSHED INTO TOKENIZED IOUS — THE SAME MONTH NOBODY WANTED THE REAL ONES — BLACKROCK TAKES BACK THE CROWN AT $2.8 BILLION

BlackRock’s BUIDL fund just passed $2.8 billion and took back first place in tokenized Treasurys, a market that now holds $15.1 billion. The fund owns cash, short-term government bills, and repurchase agreements. Moody’s stamps it AAA. It settles around the clock like a crypto asset, and that speed is the entire pitch. Hold it next to what the bond market did this month. The thirty-year yield sits within a hair of its highest level since 2007, and the Treasury Secretary said out loud that he has not bought anything yet. Buyers are demanding more to lend the government money for thirty years than at almost any time in the last twenty. And into that, fifteen billion dollars went looking for a faster way to own the same government’s IOUs. Nothing here is fake. The bills are real and they pay. But speed does not change who owes you, or whether he can pay, or what the money will be worth when he does. BlackRock collects its fee either way. A quicker claim on a borrower the world is charging more to lend to is still a claim on that borrower.