Abu Dhabi-based companies Realize and Neovision Wealth Management (NWM) have jointly launched an investment vehicle aimed at transforming units of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) focused on US Treasury bills into digital tokens.
The fund would be the first tokenized fund domiciled in the Abu Dhabi Global Market.
The fund is called Realize T-BILLS Fund and it will buy BlackRock’s iShares and State Street’s SPDR, tokenise units from these ETFs, and incorporate them within the fund, Dominik Schiener, co-founder of technology company Realize, told Reuters, adding that the companies hope to grow the project to a $200 million fund.
It will issue the $RBILL token, representing the digital units of the fund, and will be launched on both the IOTA and Ethereum blockchain networks. These tokens will be available for holding, trading, and transferring on blockchain platforms. Realize will be responsible for tokenizing the fund’s units, while NWM will manage them.
Tokenized Treasuries currently hold a market capitalization of $2.4 billion on public blockchains, mainly Ethereum, according to rwa.xyz. These digital tokens are backed by U.S. government debt and are issued by both blockchain-native companies and established financial institutions like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton.
BlackRock made headlines in March with the launch of its first tokenized fund, BUIDL, on the Ethereum blockchain. The fund exclusively invests in cash, US Treasury bills, and repos, boasting a market cap of $530 million.
