Institutional Investors Pour Billions into Ethereum DeFi

In the past three years, tokenized fund assets on Ethereum have seen a significant increase in interaction with DeFi protocols. What was once just 8% of tokenized assets is now 25%, indicating that institutional investors are increasingly using these funds as collateral and liquidity within the DeFi ecosystem.

This shift is exemplified by BlackRock's BUIDL fund, which launched in 2024 as a tokenized U.S. Treasury product. The fund has not only been listed but also used as collateral by DeFi protocols like Ethena and Spark, giving it a second life beyond its yield-bearing face value.

BlackRock took another step in 2026 by enabling BUIDL trading directly on Uniswap. JPMorgan Asset Management introduced its tokenized money market fund JLTXX in May 2026, while UBS and VanEck also launched their own tokenized funds that same month.