Is BlackRock Sidelining XRP? New Launches Shift Focus To Another Blockchain

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has picked Ethereum over the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as it plans to launch two tokenized money-market funds. These funds will target stablecoin holders as BlackRock continues to expand its crypto offerings. 

BlackRock Picks Ethereum Over XRP Ledger For New Funds

According to a Bloomberg report, BlackRock has filed with the U.S. SEC to launch two tokenized money market funds. The first fund will be tokenized shares of its BlackRock Select Treasury-Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL), which will launch on the Ethereum network. Meanwhile, the second fund, the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle (BRSRV), will launch on multiple chains, although the asset manager didn’t specify if the Ledger will be included.  

The BSTBL fund is an ideal investment for stablecoin issuers seeking to boost their reserve assets, as it invests in cash, U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and securities that mature within 93 days. BlackRock’s second tokenized fund also targets these stablecoin issuers and stablecoin holders who rely more on self-custody. 

The imminent launch of these tokenized funds will further expand BlackRock’s tokenized offerings, with the asset manager already offering the BUIDL fund, a tokenized U.S. Treasury. The fund is on several networks, with the most circulating supply on the Ethereum network. Despite being on several networks, BlackRock hasn’t expanded this fund to the Ledger, even though Ripple’s RLUSD is one of the off-ramps for the fund. 

Meanwhile, BlackRock is also known to offer Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs and has suggested that it has no plans to file for an XRP ETF anytime soon, despite speculations. Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart also recently opined that BlackRock is unlikely to file for an XRP ETF anytime soon. Instead, he sees the asset manager filing for an active crypto index fund, although this could also include XRP. 

The Ledger Still Seeing Significant Growth

The XRP Ledger continues to see significant growth in tokenized value. RWA.xyz data shows that the total RWA value on the network is up over almost 47% in the last 30 days, rising to $3.5 billion. During the same period, Ethereum’s total RWA value has dropped by 4% to $16.8 billion. 

Another positive for the Ledger is that tokenized assets on the network are seeing increased trading volume. Notably, the trading volume of tokenized U.S. Treasuries has surged past $352 million this year, up 5x from last year’s $70 million. Ondo Finance and Ripple recently partnered to complete the first cross-border tokenized U.S. Treasury settlement using Ondo’s tokenized OUSG fund on the Ledger. 

At the time of writing, the XRP price is currently trading at around $1.46, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.