Ethena accounted for 95% of BUIDL growth in the last three weeks, founder claims

Ethena Labs founder Guy Young has claimed that the synthetic dollar issuer is responsible for 95% of the recent growth in BlackRock tokenized US Treasury fund BUIDL. Young disclosed this on X while responding to the news that Fidelity wants to issue its own tokenized fund on Ethereum.

According to Young, stablecoin issuers will decide the platform for tokenized treasury products, and for one, Ethena Labs appears to have chosen BUIDL on Ethereum.

He said:

“Stablecoin issuers decide where the demand for these treasury products will sit at scale, Ethena holds >60% of BUIDL alone and accounted for 95%+ of the growth in BUIDL in the last three weeks.”

Ethena leads BUIDL’s RWA surge

BUIDL, a tokenized treasury product issued by Securitize and BlackRock in March, has been on a parabolic ride recently. Its assets under management (AUM) increased by more than 127% in the last 30 days, enabling it to cross the $1 billion mark.

Most of these gains are due to Ethena Labs, which recently allocated $200 million to the product. Interestingly, Ethena’s allocation accounts for over 60% of BUIDL’s value. This is due to the tokenized treasury product serving as the reserve asset for Ethena stablecoin USDtb.

According to Defillama, the stablecoin that Ethena launched in December 2024 already has a market cap of $1.182 billion. Unlike Ethena’s flagship product, the USDe, the USDtb is like regular stablecoins such as Tether USDT and Circle USDC.

However, its reserve asset is mostly tokenized treasury funds rather than physical treasury products. BlackRock BUIDL accounts for over 70% of the reserve assets backing USDtb. The other assets backing the stablecoin are USDC, with $350.18 million, and only $27 worth of USDT.

BlackRock BUIDL nearing $2 billion as Ethereum leads RWA issuance

Meanwhile, BlackRock BUIDL is now on its way to hitting $2 billion in AUM after recent developments. Presently, the tokenized fund has $1.467 billion in total asset value after more than doubling in the past month.

However, it could see a more substantial increase after winning the Sky (formerly MakerDAO) Tokenization Grand Prix, through which DeFi lending platform Spark will allocate $1 billion to tokenized assets. Sky recently announced BUIDL as one of the winners, along with two other tokenized products.

According to the announcement, Spark will allocate $500 million to BlackRock BUIDL, $200 million to Centrifuge JTRSY, and $300 million to Superstate USTB. Steakhouse Financial evaluated 39 applicants before selecting these three products, and Sky Governance’s final approval vote is set for April 3.

If the Sky community approves this proposal, it will represent a milestone not just for BUIDL but also for the real-world assets (RWA) sector. Tokenized US treasuries already have a total asset value of $4.77 billion and could reach $6 billion in the next few weeks.

Interestingly, Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain network for RWA activity, with 66.49% of the market share and $4.759 in AUM from 140 products. The network could soon see more products after leading asset manager Fidelity applied to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to register tokenized US dollar money market funds that will initially launch on Ethereum.

Fidelity’s application has led some analysts to question the need for a new blockchain network for RWA when all major asset issuers continue to use Ethereum. Blockworks research analyst Dan Smith noted that the big names continue to choose Ethereum to launch despite recent announcements from chains claiming they are “optimized for RWA issuance.”

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