BlackRock announced Wednesday it’s bringing its tokenized Treasury fund to Uniswap. First formal move into decentralized finance for the world’s biggest asset manager.
Meanwhile, institutional crypto lender BlockFills revealed it halted customer withdrawals last week. Still frozen.
The BlackRock news sent Uniswap’s UNI token to $4.29. Trading volume spiked 461% to $879.4 million in 24 hours as of 21:12 UTC Wednesday. Investors saw institutional validation.
BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund—ticker BUIDL—will list on the Uniswap decentralized exchange. Institutional investors can buy and sell the tokenized security onchain. The asset manager is also purchasing an undisclosed amount of UNI governance tokens as part of the arrangement.
Tokenization company Securitize is facilitating the collaboration. Securitize partnered with BlackRock on BUIDL’s original launch. According to Fortune, trading starts with a select group of eligible institutional investors and market makers before expanding more broadly.
This marks the first time a major traditional asset manager has formally integrated with DeFi infrastructure at this scale. Previous tokenized funds remained within permissioned environments. Uniswap operates as a decentralized protocol—no intermediaries, no order books, just smart contracts.
The move validates years of DeFi development. Uniswap processed over $2 trillion in total volume since its 2018 launch, but struggled to attract institutional capital amid regulatory uncertainty and security concerns. BlackRock’s entry changes that calculation.
Question is whether other asset managers follow. BlackRock manages $11.5 trillion in assets. Its competitors watched this announcement closely.
Across the Atlantic, the UK government made its own blockchain move Thursday. HM Treasury appointed HSBC Orion to power a pilot issuance of digital government bonds—called gilts in British markets.
The Digital Gilt Instrument pilot explores blockchain applications in sovereign debt issuance. Lucy Rigby, UK Economic Secretary to the Treasury, explained the rationale: “We want to attract investment and make the UK the best place to do business.”
The pilot aims to support development of domestic tokenization infrastructure. HSBC Orion will facilitate digitally native, short-dated government bonds operating within the Digital Securities Sandbox. The program targets secondary market development and broader accessibility through onchain settlement while operating independently of the UK’s main debt management program.
Treasury published a DIGIT pilot update in July 2025 outlining these plans. The appointment represents the latest step in Britain’s push to modernize sovereign debt markets using distributed ledger technology.
Governments and traditional finance giants moving into blockchain infrastructure at the same time. Both developments signal growing confidence in tokenization despite crypto’s recent volatility.
Which brings us to BlockFills.
The institution-focused lending platform halted customer deposits and withdrawals last week as Bitcoin crashed 24% from $78,995 to around $60,000. The suspension remains in effect as of Wednesday.
BlockFills said the halt came “in light of recent market and financial conditions.” The move was intended to protect clients and restore liquidity on the platform, according to a Wednesday post on X.
“Management has been working hand in hand with investors and clients to bring this issue to a swift resolution and to restore liquidity to the platform,” BlockFills explained.
Clients can still trade on BlockFills for opening and closing positions in spot and derivatives markets, plus select other circumstances. But they can’t withdraw funds.
The freeze potentially impacts about 2,000 institutional clients including asset managers and hedge funds. Those clients contributed more than $60 billion in trading volume on the platform in 2025. BlockFills serves only investors with crypto holdings of $10 million or more.
A liquidity crisis at an institutional lending platform during market turbulence. The pattern is familiar. BlockFills didn’t disclose the size of its liquidity shortfall or provide a timeline for restoration.
Three stories, one tension: institutions embracing blockchain infrastructure while crypto-native platforms struggle during volatility. BlackRock and HSBC move in. BlockFills locks the doors.
The BlockFills situation raises questions about leverage and risk management in crypto lending. These platforms borrow and lend crypto to institutions seeking yield or short-term liquidity. When Bitcoin dropped 24% in days, margin calls and liquidations cascade through the system. If borrowers can’t post collateral fast enough, lenders face shortfalls.
BlockFills hasn’t disclosed whether bad debt from client positions triggered the freeze or if the platform’s own trading operations faced losses. Both scenarios have played out at other crypto lenders during past crashes.
The contrast with BlackRock’s DeFi entry is stark. Traditional finance giants enter crypto through regulated, transparent tokenized products. Meanwhile, crypto-native lending platforms face the same liquidity traps that plagued Celsius, Voyager, and Genesis in 2022.
Different worlds operating under the same “crypto” umbrella.
For BlockFills clients, the wait continues. For UNI holders, institutional capital arrives. For the UK Treasury, blockchain pilots advance.
Next test: whether BlockFills restores withdrawals before confidence evaporates completely.
