BlackRock’s Aladdin Adds Ethena’s USDe, Expanding Institutional Access

BlackRock’s Aladdin, the firm’s institutional investment and portfolio management platform, is expanding support for Ethena’s stablecoin offerings.

BlackRock and Ethena Labs are broadening their partnership to make Ethena products more accessible to institutional investors using Aladdin, The Block reported on June 29.

As part of the expanded tie-up, Ethena’s synthetic dollar stablecoin USDe will be listed on BlackRock Aladdin as an approved digital asset. Aladdin is BlackRock’s investment management platform for institutional investors to track portfolios and analyze and manage risk.

The companies said the move is intended to expand institutional adoption of digital-dollar infrastructure and improve interoperability between digital dollars and tokenized financial assets.

Ethena will also provide a $100 million liquidity facility through tokenization platform Securitize to boost liquidity for BUIDL, BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury fund. Securitize acts as BUIDL’s regulated transfer agent.

BUIDL is BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, which offers traditional financial assets such as U.S. Treasuries on-chain in tokenized form.

Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, said the facility delivers the frictionless interoperability that is a core benefit of tokenized Treasury funds.

Under the structure, eligible BUIDL clients will be able to exchange BUIDL tokens for USDC, USDtb and other supported stablecoins. They will also be able to convert those stablecoins back into BUIDL outside regular market hours.

Guy Young, Ethena’s founder, said the next stage of digital-asset adoption will be driven by infrastructure that allows traditional institutions to interact with on-chain financial products through familiar systems and workflows.

USDe differs from traditional stablecoins such as USDC and USDT, which are directly backed by fiat-like liquid assets. Ethena designed USDe as a synthetic dollar and markets it as a product structurally capable of generating additional yield.

BlackRock and Ethena have already been working together around USDtb. The Ethena stablecoin is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and is backed primarily by BUIDL.

Since launching on Ethereum in 2024, BUIDL has grown into one of the world’s largest tokenized U.S. Treasury funds. RWA.xyz data shows tokenized Treasuries account for nearly half of the broader real-world asset tokenization market, with about $15 billion on-chain.

BUIDL’s total value locked is about $3 billion, according to DefiLlama.