GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that catches you up on crypto faster than free drinks flow at a fintech conference.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ BlackRock enters DeFi.
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: The Structural Bull Case for Crypto in a Changing Liquidity Regime w/ Jamie Coutts.
- 🍪 Did Russia just bleed BTC?
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Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.
BLACKROCK ENTERS DEFI → BUYS UNI TOKENS 🦄
The world's largest asset manager is going full DeFi degen!
(In their own way, at least.)
BlackRock just made a strategic investment in Uniswap and accumulated an undisclosed position in UNI.
And this ain’t no pilot program!
BlackRock is putting its $2.2B tokenized treasury fund, BUIDL, directly on a decentralized exchange.
Lemme break down what just happened and why it matters:
BlackRock will make BUIDL shares tradable on Uniswap, allowing pre-qualified investors to swap tokenized treasuries around the clock using stablecoins.
And to celebrate, they bought an undisclosed amount of UNI.
(Sending the token +40%, bottom to top, within an hour yesterday.) 👇
But the price action isn't the story here.
The story is what this signals about institutional adoption of DeFi infrastructure.
When the largest asset manager on the planet (managing over $10T) decides to build on your protocol, that's validation that goes beyond speculation.
They didn't choose a private blockchain. They didn't build their own infrastructure.
They chose Uniswap.
And when institutions commit capital and reputation to a specific piece of infrastructure, it usually signals where the market is heading 12 to 24 months out.
“…ok, but aren’t you getting a little over-excited here? BUIDL is a gated fund, made up of the world’s most boring asset: treasuries.”
Sure, that’s one way of looking at it. But I’d counter with this:
You’re focusing on the trees. Look at the forest.
Here’s what I’m getting at…
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BLACKROCK ENTERS DEFI → BUYS UNI TOKENS (P2) 🦄
Moving onto DeFi rails unlocks a whole bunch of new opportunities for BlackRock - and most of those opportunities are born from:
- Speed.
- Availability.
- New functionality.
Pass me the coconut oil, and I’ll give you the rub…
1. Speed
TradFi settles SLOW. 2 business days for equities, and up to 5 business days for some bonds.
For a firm like BlackRock - that costs them A LOT of money. Or better yet, A LOT of missed opportunities.
When BlackRock trades, they trade in size. So 2-5 days' settlement often means billions of their dollars/assets are locked up in limbo (earning nothing).
Assuming $50B is tied up in settlement at any one time (~0.5% of $10T AUM), and a 5% annual return opportunity cost (if that capital were deployed)...
That would mean BlackRock is losing ~$6.85M per day to settlement.
Source: Milk Road
In DeFi - those settlement times are near instant. No lost opportunities, no lost earnings.
2. Availability
In TradFi, if news breaks Friday at 5pm, you can't act until Monday 9:30am.
If BlackRock can offer 24/7 liquidity on BUIDL (and the rest of their product offerings) before their competitors - they’ll win more investor flows.
More investor flows = more fees = more profit for BlackRock.
3. New functionality
In TradFi - you can use treasuries (like the ones wrapped up in BlackRock’s BUIDL fund) as collateral for loans, allowing you to make large bets without selling your existing holdings.
But that comes with friction: legal documents, settlement delays, custodian coordination…
In DeFi, that friction doesn’t exist. Tokenized treasuries can serve as collateral in DeFi lending protocols instantly.
The through-line across each of these factors?
DeFi’s greater efficiency allows BlackRock to squeeze more juice from the same old orange.
Gated tokenized treasuries sound boring as hell (and they are) - but this is just the beginning.
BlackRock wants to be a first mover, and seeing as they’re the biggest dog in the yard when it comes to global asset managers - others will likely follow to compete.
More money moving onchain = more value being added to the total crypto market cap.
(That’s the forest.)
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Did Russia just bleed BTC? Russia may want to get back into the dollar system. If they do re-enter, it could mean a stronger dollar (which is bad for BTC).
This sounds bad... BUT! If it plays out, it means we’ll have the opportunity to grab a 2x on BTC and ~3x on ETH this year…
Let’s take a look at the data: What’s the latest on the U.S. jobs market?
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