-
Ethena
shared
plans
to
allocate
a
part
of
its
$235
million
USDT
stablecoin
collateral
and
$45
million
surplus
reserve
in
yield-generating
real-world
asset
(RWA)
offerings. -
BlackRock’s
BUIDL
fund
pitched
for
a
$34
million
allocation,
while
Steakhouse
Financial
applied
with
a
lending
vault
on
Morpho
Blue.
Ethena,
the
protocol
behind
the
$3.4
billion
yield-generating
“synthetic
dollar”
token
USDe,
is
planning
to
invest
a
part
of
its
reserves
in
tokenized
real-world
assets
(RWA),
and
BlackRock’s
BUIDL
fund
is
among
the
first
applicants
to
throw
its
hat
in
the
ring.
The
protocol
laid
out
plans
in
a
July
16
governance
post
to
allocate
a
part
of
its
$235
million
USDT
holdings,
roughly
7%
of
collateral
assets,
and
its
$45
million
surplus
buffer
called
the
Reserve
Fund
to
RWA
products
to
earn
a
yield.
Ethena’s
token
provides
yield
to
investors
by
buying
spot
bitcoin
{{BTC}}
and
ether
{{ETH}}
and
paralelly
selling,
or
shorting,
perpetual
swaps
of
the
assets
on
crypto
exchanges,
harvesting
the
funding
rate.
BlackRock’s
BUIDL,
a
money
market
fund
represented
by
an
Ethereum-based
token,
seeks
a
$34
million
allocation
from
Ethena’s
$45
million
Reserve
Fund,
according
to
a
Monday
post
by
Jonathan
Espinosa
from
tokenization
platform
Securitize,
BUIDL’s
distribution
partner.
Steakhouse
Financial
also
applied
for
a
Reserve
Fund
allocation
on
Monday
with
a
USDC
lending
vault
on
DeFi
platform
Morpho
Blue,
which
is
overcollateralized
by
wrapped
bitcoin
(wBTC),
wrapped
staked
ether
(wstETH)
and
Backed’s
tokenized
Treasury
Bills
product
(bIB01).
Mountain
Protocol,
issuer
of
the
USDM
yield-bearing
stablecoin,
also
signaled
interest
in
applying,
with
founder
Michael
Carrica
replying
last
week
to
the
governance
post
that
the
protocol
“will
be
presenting
a
proposal
in
the
coming
days.”
All
prospective
applicants
will
need
to
post
their
proposal
publicly
on
the
governance
forum,
Guy
Young,
founder
of
Ethena
Labs,
the
developer
company
behind
the
protocol,
said
in
an
email.
Ethena’s
open
competition
is
the
latest
example
of
tokenized
RWAs
getting
increasingly
used
in
the
crypto-native,
decentralized
finance
(DeFi)
world.
Most
recently,
DeFi
lender
MakerDAO
announced
plans
to
invest
$1
billion
of
backing
assets
of
the
DAI
stablecoin
in
tokenized
Treasury
products,
while
ArbitrumDAO,
an
ecosystem
development
organization
of
Ethereum
layer-2
Arbitrum,
finalized
a
similar
contest
to
allocate
the
equivalent
of
35
million
of
ARB
tokens
in
tokenized
offerings.
UPDATE
(July
23,
21:35
UTC):
Clarifies
that
the
BlackRock,
Steakhouse
proposals
are
for
Ethena’s
Reserve
Fund
allocation.