Author: Jae, PANews

On February 11, global asset management giant BlackRock announced the deployment of its approximately $2.2 billion tokenized Treasury fund BUIDL to the UniswapX protocol for on-chain trading.

At the same time, BlackRock confirmed that it has purchased the native governance token UNI of Uniswap. Although the amount has not been disclosed, this marks the first time this financial empire, managing $14 trillion in assets, has directly exposed its balance sheet to DeFi (decentralized finance) governance tokens.

Following the news, the UNI token saw an increase of over 25%. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams stated: DeFi has reached an important day, and this collaboration will leverage Uniswap’s market structure to provide on-chain trading for BUIDL investors, with settlements occurring on Ethereum. This is a significant step towards "almost all value being tradeable on-chain."

This event is not merely about asset listing, but a new exploration of financial infrastructure. For the first time, Wall Street actively stepped into the living room of DeFi, handed out business cards, and brought out the checkbook. Tony Edward, founder of the Thinking Crypto Podcast, pointed out: this is a significant adoption of cryptocurrency; BlackRock is embracing DeFi.

For Uniswap, this means it is transitioning from being primarily retail-driven to becoming an invisible backend for institutional liquidity. For BlackRock, this means it finally believes that DEX (decentralized exchanges) have matured enough to be entrusted as underlying financial infrastructure.

BUIDL's $2.2 billion "boarding" of Uniswap, Treasury can also instantly become U

To understand the significance of this collaboration, it is essential to clarify a key fact: BUIDL has not been thrown into a liquidity pool like ordinary tokens in Uniswap V2 or V3, but is instead embedded in UniswapX.

Since its launch, BUIDL has developed into the largest institutional-grade tokenized fund on-chain, primarily supported by US Treasuries, cash, and repurchase agreements.

However, the liquidity of such assets has long been limited to traditional over-the-counter (OTC) trading or specific redemption cycles, restricting their utility in the digital asset market.

UniswapX is a transaction aggregation protocol launched by Uniswap Labs based on an "intention-based" trading model, with the core mechanism being a Request for Quote (RFQ) framework, which will provide institutional investors with a gas-free, anti-MEV (miner extractable value), and price-optimized trading environment.

In other words, users no longer need to find trading routes, pay gas fees, or worry about MEV attacks; they only need to express "I want to exchange BUIDL for USDC," and the rest will be handled by professional market makers.

The most significant difference between this framework and traditional AMMs (automated market makers) is that: it is programmably compliant.

In the trading process of BUIDL, Securitize Markets will play the role of the "regulatory gatekeeper," responsible for the pre-qualification and whitelist verification of all investors participating in the trade. Only qualified investors with assets exceeding $5 million can enter this trading ecosystem. Market makers such as Wintermute and Flowdesk have also been pre-screened.

This means that although BUIDL is traded on a decentralized protocol, its participants are still under strict KYC/AML regulations.

This concept of "compliance layering" resolves the contradiction between the anonymity of decentralized protocols and the compliance required by traditional finance. Simply put, trades occur on the Uniswap interface, settlements occur on Ethereum's ledger, but the compliance pressure is preloaded to Securitize.

Uniswap can maintain the permissionless characteristics of the protocol while attracting institutional-grade capital. This is a full application of the "intention-based" trading model: users express intentions, and professional fillers execute under compliance.

Even more disruptive is the leap in settlement efficiency.

Traditional money market fund settlements typically require T+1 or even longer. The integration of BUIDL on UniswapX will enable atomic-level instant settlements.

This indicates that holders can instantaneously convert their Treasuries, which generate a 4% annual yield, into USDC at any time (including weekends and holidays), significantly enhancing capital efficiency.

For institutions, this level of liquidity will give tokenized assets advantages in collateral management and risk hedging that traditional assets cannot match.

This essentially creates a high liquidity secondary market for "yield-bearing stablecoins." UniswapX provides a low-loss conversion channel between these yield rights and instant purchasing power.

UNI is no longer an air governance token; BlackRock is diving in with real money

If the launch of BUIDL represents a business collaboration, BlackRock's purchase of UNI tokens signifies a capital alliance.

For a long time, UNI has been joked about as a "worthless governance token." Holders could not directly obtain any economic share from the protocol's annual trading volume worth hundreds of billions of dollars, apart from participating in votes. However, this state will end by the end of 2025.

The passage of the "UNIfication" proposal has rewritten the narrative of UNI's value.

Under the "UNIfication" framework, Uniswap has officially activated the protocol fee switch and introduced a "TokenJar + Firepit" smart contract system.

All protocol fees from Uniswap V2, V3, and L2 Unichain will flow into the TokenJar, and the only way to extract this value is by burning an equivalent amount of UNI tokens through the Firepit.

This programmatic buyback and burn mechanism has, for the first time, intuitively transformed the trading volume of the protocol into a deflationary incentive for UNI tokens.

As of February 12, based on estimates from DeFiLlama, the annual revenue of the Uniswap protocol will exceed $26 million.

BlackRock's purchase of UNI tokens at this time demonstrates a keen capital sensitivity.

UNI is no longer just a symbolic voting right; it has become a blue-chip target with "productive asset" attributes. As trading volume for RWA assets such as BUIDL continues to grow on Uniswap, the fees captured by the protocol will increase, further accelerating the burn of UNI and enhancing the token's intrinsic value.

However, the strategic intent of this transaction goes beyond financial returns; it is about gaining "voice" in the global decentralized liquidity infrastructure. As a capital giant managing over $14 trillion in assets, BlackRock needs to ensure that the trading protocol underpinning its tokenized assets operates stably and does not undergo radical governance changes unfavorable to institutions.

Holding a sufficient proportion of UNI tokens means:

1. Preventing discriminatory fee policies: Preventing excessive fees from being charged on the UniswapX path where BUIDL resides.
2. Promoting the standardization of compliance Hooks: In the Uniswap V4 Hooks architecture, BlackRock can use its voting rights to support those clearing Hooks that meet regulatory requirements, creating a more friendly trading environment for institutions.
3. Backing asset values: Through direct holdings, BlackRock will also signal to other traditional financial institutions: some DeFi tokens have matured enough to be part of a diversified asset allocation.

The marriage of BlackRock and Uniswap is not a casual encounter of capital, but marks a formal shift of DeFi from "experimental finance" to the "infrastructure finance" stage.

By bringing in participants of BlackRock's caliber, Uniswap has carved out a new moat in the increasingly competitive DEX market.

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