Collateral goes mainstream
Tokenized Treasuries just crossed a new threshold. BlackRock's BUIDL fund, issued onchain by Securitize, is expanding to BNB Chain and can be pledged as collateral for trading on Binance, according to an announcement on Nov. 14. For a centralized exchange that says it serves more than 290 million users, the move plugs a multi-billion-dollar, yield-bearing real-world asset directly into margin workflows.
It is not simply another network integration. Collateral acceptance is where onchain assets meet practical market plumbing—portfolio financing, leverage, and capital efficiency. With BUIDL now usable on Binance, tokenized T-bills are shifting from proof-of-concept to day-to-day utility.
Why this matters
- Scale: BUIDL is the largest tokenized RWA fund with more than $2.5 billion in assets, per RWAxyz. When large collateral objects gain new venues, market behavior changes.
- Access: BNB Chain broadens distribution across a network that has become one of crypto's busiest venues, with over $7.4 billion in total value locked (DeFiLlama).
- Momentum: Onchain RWA value has more than doubled since January, recently topping $36 billion. The trend is no longer niche; it is building infrastructure gravity around yield-bearing dollars.
Why BNB Chain—and why now
BNB Chain's appeal is straightforward: scale, EVM compatibility, and a deep pool of retail and developer activity. Adding BUIDL there reduces frictions for institutions and trading firms already operating across multiple EVM chains, while positioning the fund where a large amount of onchain activity already happens.
For Binance, recognizing BUIDL as collateral strengthens its product stack in two directions at once—bridging offchain yield into exchange margin and offering traders a way to keep working capital in a regulated, interest-accruing instrument rather than idle stablecoins.
How BUIDL works, and where it lives
Launched in March 2024 as BlackRock's first public blockchain fund, BUIDL allows qualified investors to hold tokenized exposure to U.S. dollar cash and Treasuries, receive daily payouts, and transfer positions onchain. Securitize handles tokenization and investor onboarding, which means access is gated to eligible participants rather than broad retail.
Prior to this BNB Chain addition, BUIDL had already been deployed across multiple networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Aptos, and Avalanche. The multi-chain footprint acknowledges a reality of modern crypto: liquidity is fragmented, and institutions want choice.
What leaders are saying
Securitize co-founder and CEO Carlos Domingo framed the move as part of a larger push to bring regulated real-world assets onchain and to expand their practical utility—collateral being a prime example.
Market read-through
- Capital efficiency vs. stablecoins: Yield-bearing collateral competes with zero-yield stablecoins for traders' base capital. If exchanges accept tokenized T-bills broadly, stablecoin dominance in margin accounts could erode.
- Institutional on-ramps: Regulated wrappers like BUIDL lower operational friction for funds that need KYC'd instruments and daily accruals while retaining onchain portability.
- CEX-to-DeFi spillover: As centralized venues normalize RWA collateral, DeFi protocols may accelerate similar integrations to keep pace, pushing for standardized custody, oracle, and settlement frameworks.
Risks and open questions
- Custody and rehypothecation: Collateral terms on centralized venues matter. Who holds the tokens, under what segregation model, and are they rehypothecated?
- Cross-chain liquidity: A multi-chain asset can fragment order flow. Bridges and settlement rails introduce additional operational risk.
- Regulatory perimeter: With qualified-investor gating, retail users may see the utility indirectly (tighter spreads, deeper liquidity) rather than holding BUIDL directly.
The bigger picture
Tokenized Treasuries have quickly evolved from experimental wrappers into building blocks for market infrastructure. By making BUIDL usable as collateral and distributing it to BNB Chain, BlackRock, Securitize, and Binance are collectively testing how far traditional yield can integrate with crypto-native leverage and settlement. The endgame is clear: a world where cash-like instruments move at blockchain speed, sit productively on balance sheets, and plug into both CEX and DeFi rails.