Tokenized Treasuries

A tokenized US Treasury is a blockchain token that represents a share in a fund holding short-duration US government debt — typically T-bills with maturities under one year. The token is issued by a regulated entity (BlackRock, Ondo, Hashnote, Superstate, Franklin Templeton) that custodies the underlying bonds with a qualified custodian and publishes regular attestations. Holders earn the prevailing T-bill yield (currently in the 4-5% range), settled on-chain rather than through a brokerage.

BlackRock's BUIDL is the largest tokenized treasury product, with billions in AUM. The underlying assets are US Treasury bills, cash, and repo agreements held by BNY Mellon as custodian. Securitize is the transfer agent and handles KYC. The product is restricted to qualified institutional investors. In the RWTS Trust Score, BUIDL scores highly on backing, regulatory posture, and audit, but its redemption window is T+0 only during US market hours via Circle's USDC swap facility — meaning effective liquidity is narrower than the on-chain settlement implies.

BUIDL (BlackRock/Securitize) and USYC (Hashnote) are both institutional tokenized treasury products, but they differ on three dimensions: BUIDL's underlying is a 1940 Act fund with BlackRock as adviser and BNY Mellon as custodian; USYC is structured as a Cayman fund with Hashnote as the issuer and InCore as custodian, with Circle as a key liquidity partner after the November 2025 acquisition. BUIDL has larger AUM and stronger brand recognition; USYC has more permissionless on-chain composability. Compare the live Trust Scores in the table above.

Tokenized treasury products pass through the yield on short-duration US government debt, less a management fee (typically 15-50 bps). At current Fed policy rates that translates to roughly 4.0-4.6% net APY. The yield is variable and tracks T-bill auction results, so as the Fed cuts or hikes the underlying yield moves with it. Unlike stablecoin-yield products, the income is treated as fund distributions for tax purposes in most US jurisdictions — consult a tax adviser.

Redemption mechanics differ by product. BUIDL holders redeem to USDC via a Circle-operated swap facility during US market hours; same-day if executed early in the session. Ondo's USDY redeems for USDC daily with minimums. OUSG (also Ondo) uses an instant-redemption stablecoin pool. Franklin Templeton's BENJI redeems through Franklin's transfer agent on T+1. Most products are restricted to KYC'd, often non-US, often qualified-purchaser investors. The token itself trades on-chain but secondary liquidity is thin compared to stablecoins.

Mechanically very similar — both hold short-duration government debt and pass through the yield to holders. The differences are operational: a money-market fund settles through traditional fund infrastructure (brokers, transfer agents, T+1), while a tokenized treasury settles on-chain in seconds and can move between wallets without intermediaries. Tokenized products also tend to have higher minimum investments and KYC requirements but offer 24/7 settlement and composability with DeFi protocols.

Every asset gets a Trust Score on a 100-point scale across six dimensions: backing (25 pts) — quality and custody of the underlying bonds; verification (20 pts) — attestation and on-chain transparency; redeemability (15 pts) — how easily you can exit and on what cadence; audit (15 pts) — smart-contract and fund audit posture; regulatory (15 pts) — issuer compliance and jurisdiction; and trackRecord (10 pts) — time in market and incident history. See the full methodology page for the rubric and source data.