BlackRock has launched tokenized share classes for a group of European money market funds with combined assets of $311 billion, marking the firm’s first on-chain fund access offering in Europe.
12 share classes across six Institutional Cash Series funds
The new structure includes 12 share classes spread across six funds in BlackRock’s Institutional Cash Series. The lineup covers euro, sterling, and U.S. dollar strategies, with both distributing and accumulating versions.
The tokens are minted on Ethereum using Kinexys, J.P. Morgan’s blockchain unit. Kinexys handles minting and burning and serves as the layer between on-chain activity and the traditional share register.
Each token represents a share in the underlying fund. The official shareholder register remains with the fund’s transfer agent. BlackRock said smart contracts move holdings between approved investor wallets, giving investors round-the-clock peer-to-peer transferability and near real-time visibility into holdings.
BlackRock and Kinexys outline the use case
“Today’s launches represent an important evolution in how investors access and manage cash, while helping modernise capital markets infrastructure,” Beccy Milchem, Global Head of Cash Distribution and Head of the International Cash Management business at BlackRock, said in a press release shared with Decrypt.
Kara Kennedy, global head of market development at Kinexys, said that “Tokenization has moved from concept to execution.”
BlackRock said it expects the structure to support use cases in corporate treasury management, digital collateral, and bank and wealth distribution channels.
Available to professional and qualified clients
The tokenized share classes are being marketed to professional and qualified clients, not retail investors. They are available in Bermuda, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
The underlying funds are public debt constant net asset value and low volatility NAV money market funds regulated under Europe’s UCITS framework. Hannah Winter, BlackRock’s Head of Digital Cash, said the tokenized versions keep the same standards on capital preservation, liquidity, and risk management as the existing share classes.
Part of BlackRock’s broader tokenization push
The launch comes a day after BlackRock issued tokenized money market funds that record ownership on Solana, Ethereum, and Stripe’s Tempo, with Securitize acting as transfer agent. Those funds are aimed at stablecoin reserve management.
The asset manager has been building toward this since BUIDL, the tokenized fund it launched on Ethereum in March 2024 with a $5 million minimum. That product has since expanded across eight networks. Chief executive Larry Fink and COO Rob Goldstein have described tokenization as “the next major evolution in market infrastructure.”
BUIDL now manages more than $2.6 billion. The new ICS share classes launch against an existing $311 billion asset base, though BlackRock has not said how much of that it expects to move on-chain.