BlackRock launches tokenised money market funds to back stablecoins

BlackRock wants to run the money behind stablecoins. The world’s largest asset manager has launched two tokenised money market funds built to serve as reserves for stablecoin issuers, deepening its push into blockchain-based finance.

The funds are its latest step in tokenisation, the business of putting traditional assets such as Treasury bills onto a blockchain. It is a race Wall Street rivals including JPMorgan have already joined.

One fund, ticker BSTBL, is a tokenised share class of an existing BlackRock money market fund, issued on Ethereum. The other, BRSRV, is a new vehicle built specifically as a stablecoin reserve, with daily dividend reinvestment and access across multiple blockchains.

The timing follows the law. The US GENIUS Act, passed about a year ago, set rules for how stablecoins must be backed, and BlackRock is positioning its funds as the safe, yield-bearing assets issuers can hold against the tokens they mint.

‘We see lots of growth ahead in stablecoin and we want to be the reserve manager of choice,’ said BlackRock chief financial officer Martin Small, whose firm already manages tens of billions of dollars in stablecoin reserves.

BlackRock is far from alone. Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Fidelity have rolled out similar products, and the competition to manage onchain cash has become one of the busier corners of traditional finance.

The market has grown fast. BlackRock’s first tokenised fund, BUIDL, launched in 2024 and now holds around $2.5bn, while the broader tokenised-asset market has swelled from about $2bn to $37bn since.

The gold rush has pulled in startups too. Firms such as Midas have raised money to tokenise real-world assets, betting the plumbing of finance is moving onto public blockchains whether banks lead or follow.

Reserves are only one front in the stablecoin fight. A consortium including Visa and Mastercard launched Open USD to undercut incumbents, so the question of who issues the tokens is as contested as who manages the money behind them.

The incumbents are feeling it. Visa’s move into a stablecoin platform sent shares of the established issuer Circle tumbling, a sign of how fast the ground is shifting under a market once held by a few names.

Tokenising a fund means issuing its shares as blockchain tokens that can move and settle around the clock. The appeal for institutions is faster settlement and programmable cash, not speculation.

Stablecoins have become the crypto economy’s cash layer, and whoever manages their reserves earns a steady yield on a fast-growing pool of money. That is the prize BlackRock is chasing.

For BlackRock, the logic is scale. Stablecoins now move hundreds of billions of dollars, and the reserves behind them are exactly the kind of low-risk, fee-generating mandate the firm has built its business on.

There is a defensive edge, too. If tokenised cash becomes the default way value moves onchain, an asset manager that sits out the shift risks watching a slice of the money market migrate to whoever does not.

Regulation turned a niche experiment into a race. Clearer US rules gave banks and asset managers the cover to move, and Europe’s own framework is pushing the same shift on the other side of the Atlantic.

The open question is geography. BlackRock’s tokenised push has so far centred on US rules, and how far these funds reach European investors, and under which regime, is the part still coming into focus.

Being early matters in infrastructure. The manager that becomes the default home for stablecoin reserves could lock in a franchise that is hard for rivals to dislodge later.

Tokenised money market funds are not glamorous, which is rather the point. BlackRock is betting that the dull, dependable cash sitting behind the crypto economy is a market worth owning, and it means to own it.