Wall Street’s Safest Asset Takes a Step Toward the Blockchain
One of Wall Street’s most conservative and tightly regulated assets is edging onto the blockchain, as an ETF issuer seeks regulatory approval to tokenize part of the U.S. Treasury market — without changing how investors trade, custody, or access the fund.
F/m Investments, manager of the $6.3 billion US Treasury 3-Month Bill ETF (TBIL), filed a request with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Jan. 21 seeking permission to record ownership of a portion of existing ETF shares on a blockchain.
The proposal would leave the ETF’s holdings, ticker, trading venues, and investor experience unchanged. Tokenized shares would coexist with traditional shares, carrying the same fees, rights, disclosures, and regulatory protections.
If approved, the move would represent one of the clearest attempts yet to bring blockchain-based ownership records directly into the core of regulated securities markets — on regulators’ terms rather than through parallel or offshore structures.
Tokenization momentum builds across finance
The filing reflects a broader acceleration in the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), a trend that has gained momentum over the past year as large financial institutions experiment with blockchain infrastructure inside regulated frameworks.
Major firms and banks have already launched tokenized products aimed at improving settlement efficiency, transparency, and operational costs — without altering the underlying assets themselves.
BlackRock’s digital liquidity fund has scaled rapidly on Ethereum, attracting institutional interest, while JPMorgan recently rolled out a tokenized money-market fund designed specifically for institutional clients.
Unlike earlier blockchain experiments that targeted crypto-native investors, the TBIL proposal is notable for its conservative scope. It does not introduce new trading mechanics or custody models, but instead focuses on whether blockchain technology can quietly modernize record-keeping for one of the safest assets in global finance: short-term U.S. Treasuries.
If regulators approve the request, tokenized treasuries could become a real-world test case for how blockchain infrastructure might integrate with traditional markets — not as a replacement, but as an invisible upgrade.
