#贝莱德计划购入UNI BlackRock Enters DeFi, The Show Has Just Begun📢📢📢

While traditional financial giants are still observing DeFi, the world's largest asset management company, BlackRock, has already taken a substantial step forward. On February 11, BlackRock announced the purchase of Uniswap governance token UNI, and integrated its $1.8-2.2 billion BUIDL tokenized fund into UniswapX trading.
Following the announcement, Uniswap's native governance token UNI price rapidly surged from $3.2 to nearly $4.6, with a peak increase of 40%.
BlackRock manages over $10 trillion in assets, and every move it makes influences the global financial markets. Now that it is buying DeFi governance tokens, what does this mean?

1. Who Exactly Is BlackRock?
Before diving into this partnership, it’s essential to understand BlackRock’s significance. It’s not an ordinary Wall Street player but a “ballast” of the global financial system. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, managing approximately $14 trillion in assets.
What does $14 trillion mean? It’s equivalent to the combined GDP of Japan and Germany, accounting for over one-seventh of the total global stock market capitalization. From the U.S. government and Saudi sovereign wealth funds to ordinary people's 401(k) retirement funds, almost all large institutions entrust their money to BlackRock. The company's influence permeates every corner: it is the largest shareholder of tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, wielding significant voting power at shareholder meetings; in 2024, the Bitcoin spot ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund, a fund product that can be bought and sold on stock markets) promoted by BlackRock was approved, opening the floodgates for traditional capital to flow into crypto markets; even during the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve hired BlackRock to assist with complex asset management, earning it the nickname “shadow central bank.” When such a giant announces “I’m entering DeFi,” the signal is far beyond that of an ordinary wealthy individual buying tokens. It’s more like a rule-maker personally validating the legitimacy of a new track.
The attitude shift of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is highly symbolic— from calling Bitcoin a “money laundering index” a few years ago, to promoting Bitcoin ETFs in 2024, and now directly purchasing UNI tokens. This transformation clearly indicates: blockchain is no longer seen as a fringe experiment but as a core component of the next-generation financial infrastructure.

2. A Tug-of-War Between “Compliance and Efficiency”
This partnership was not achieved overnight. According to Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, negotiations initially took place in a tug-of-war between BlackRock’s Manhattan Hudson Yards headquarters and Uniswap’s pink office in SoHo.
As a financial giant managing trillions, BlackRock has always been cautious about DeFi. They value the efficiency of on-chain 24/7 settlement but must also ensure compliance with institutional standards. The final plan involves BlackRock accessing UniswapX through an RFQ (Request for Quote) framework—requesting quotes from professional market makers for large trades—rather than opening it to all retail investors. This means BUIDL fund’s on-chain transactions still use a whitelist system (only pre-approved addresses can participate), limited to qualified buyers (high-net-worth individuals defined by the US SEC as having net assets ≥$5 million or annual income ≥$200,000) and designated market makers (such as Wintermute, an institution providing liquidity).

3. BlackRock’s Tokenization Experiment
1. BUIDL Fund Overview
BUIDL (BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund) is a tokenized fund backed by U.S. Treasuries and cash equivalents, currently the largest institutional tokenized fund on-chain.
Fund features:
- Underlying assets: cash, U.S. Treasuries, and repurchase agreements
- Stable value: tokens maintain a stable value of $1
- Yield distribution: daily accrued interest, airdropped monthly as new tokens into investors’ wallets
- Investment threshold: only for qualified investors, with a minimum initial investment of $5 million
- Regulatory compliance: regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Launched in March 2024, managing about $2.4 billion as of February. BUIDL has been issued on multiple chains including Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Aptos, and Avalanche. In January this year, BUIDL reached a milestone of $150 million in cumulative distribution.
2. On-Chain Liquidity Upgrade for BUIDL
BlackRock’s integration of BUIDL into Uniswap achieved two historic breakthroughs: first, the unlocking of liquidity layers. The traditional T+2 settlement cycle (trade today, settlement two days later, with counterparty risk) was compressed into atomic settlement (instant settlement via blockchain smart contracts) on UniswapX, eliminating counterparty risk. Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s global head of digital assets, said, “Integrating BUIDL into UniswapX marks a major leap in interoperability between tokenized dollar yield funds and stablecoins.”
Second, the extension of the yield curve. Thanks to DeFi’s composability (the ability to combine protocols like Lego blocks—e.g., using deposit certificates as collateral to borrow on another platform, stacking yields), BUIDL holders can maintain exposure to Treasuries while participating in on-chain lending or providing liquidity, implementing a “compound yield” strategy. This is highly attractive to institutional funds chasing capital efficiency.

4. Why Uniswap?
In DeFi, Uniswap is not the only liquidity hub, but it became BlackRock’s preferred partner for strategic reasons.
Technologically, UniswapX’s RFQ mechanism meets the needs of institutions for “controllable liquidity.” Unlike AMM (Automated Market Maker, a trading mechanism that automatically prices via formulas), RFQ allows professional market makers to quote large orders, ensuring efficient price discovery while avoiding the “slippage” issues typical of AMMs (large trades causing significant market price movements, resulting in worse-than-expected execution prices). This is crucial for institutional trades often worth millions of dollars.
On the compliance side, Uniswap’s “permissioned pools” (trading pools with access restrictions, requiring KYC) provide necessary identity verification and AML checks. BlackRock can ensure counterparties are vetted while maintaining blockchain transparency and traceability. This “semi-centralized” DeFi form may be the most comfortable transitional zone for traditional financial giants.
Notably, BlackRock not only uses Uniswap’s technology but also directly purchases UNI tokens. This move is interpreted as a strategic investment in Uniswap governance rights, giving UNI holders voting power over protocol upgrades, fee distributions, and other key decisions.
Although the specific holdings are undisclosed, this undoubtedly elevates Uniswap’s position as “institutional-grade governance infrastructure.”

5. Reflection on the RWA Wave
BlackRock’s entry coincides with the explosive growth of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Currently, DeFi platforms have a TVL (Total Value Locked, the total assets deposited in DeFi protocols, an important indicator of platform size) of about $100 billion, while traditional capital markets are measured in hundreds of trillions. In theory, even 1% of traditional assets tokenized could reshape the entire DeFi ecosystem.
However, the path is not smooth. First, the controversy over access thresholds. The current whitelist mechanism creates a “glass ceiling” in DeFi—ordinary investors can only watch as institutions enjoy on-chain dividends, which conflicts with the core ethos of permissionless finance (open financial systems that require no approval).
Second, regulatory uncertainty. Although the U.S. Congress is pushing stablecoin legislation, the SEC’s attitude toward DeFi remains ambiguous.
As a regulated asset manager, BlackRock’s on-chain activities must be cautious within a compliant framework. Industry observers say, “This is not DeFi swallowing TradFi (traditional finance), but TradFi domestication of DeFi.”
Finally, there are concerns about technical risks. Smart contract bugs, oracle attacks, governance attacks, and other DeFi-native risks pose potential catastrophic losses for managing trillions of dollars. That’s why this partnership is limited to “qualified buyers” under controlled risk conditions for stress testing.

6. Conclusion
The collaboration between BlackRock and Uniswap is like a seam that stitches together two parallel financial worlds.
For DeFi, this is the best “rebranding”: decentralized protocols are no longer just speculative tools but are becoming core financial infrastructure capable of supporting institutional assets. For traditional finance, it’s a necessary step—when tokenized assets can offer higher efficiency and transparency, rejecting blockchain integration means losing competitiveness. The surge in UNI’s price will eventually stabilize, but the paradigm shift initiated by this partnership is irreversible. From Bitcoin spot ETFs to BUIDL on-chain, BlackRock is systematically building a bridge from the “Old World” to the “New Land.” When this bridge becomes strong enough, true inclusive finance may finally arrive. As Hayden Adams said after the partnership announcement: “We spent 18 months proving DeFi is ready for institutional capital. Now, the show is just getting started.”