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(Kitco News) - Cryptocurrency investment platform Finblox has announced a new partnership with OpenEden to launch tokenized U.S. Treasury Bills, giving investors in Southeast Asia a way to earn a yield on their stablecoin holdings via OpenEden’s TBILL token rights.
“We’re thrilled to launch the tokenized rights to US Treasury Bills (T-Bills) in partnership with OpenEden, which operates the first smart contract vault to offer 24/7 access to U.S. Treasury Bills,” Finblox said in its announcement. “This move unlocks a trillion-dollar market for the millions of web3 users starting with our amazing Finblox community.”
According to OpenEden, the Tokenized T-bills (TBILL) Vault is the world’s first smart-contract vault for U.S. Treasury Bills. The Vault “provides investors with direct exposure to a pool of short-dated T-Bills through the Vault’s TBILL token, which is backed 1:1 by the T-Bills as well as USD Coin and U.S. dollar reserves,” they wrote. “TBILL holders receive a return on their capital that reflects the returns provided by the underlying T-Bills assets held by the Vault.”
Data on the OpenEden app shows that there is currently more than $12.5 million in value locked in the TBILL Vault, with deposits earning an estimated yield of 5.25%.
Tokenized T-bills essentially function as a blockchain-based version of a high-yield savings account where investors can hold their excess stablecoins in short-term U.S. government bonds, which are generally considered to be one of the safest investments.
The main issue with the TBILL Vault is that currently, investors need to meet the Accredited Investor or Professional Investor criteria before subscribing to TBILL tokens. Through OpenEden’s partnership with Finblox, the DeFi platform will serve as an intermediary, investing TBILL tokens and then passing on the yield generated to its users via its own “T-Bill Token.”
Under this arrangement, Finblox will take a cut of as much as one percentage point from OpenEden’s estimated annual yield.
The new partnership comes as Finblox is working to establish itself as a “crypto superapp” capable of providing a wide range of financial services to its community of more than 300 million crypto enthusiasts.
“We’ve been working relentlessly on this release with a mission in mind: to bridge the gap between traditional finance and the crypto universe,” Finblox said. “This launch signifies more than just another product release; it is a promise — a promise of transparency, which the crypto industry craves, particularly in light of the 2022 events involving entities like FTX, Celsius and Three Arrows Capital. With real-time access to view assets deployed into $TBILL tokens, we are not just making claims; we are demonstrating our commitment to transparency.”
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| Citi says tokenized securities could hit $5 trillion, over 4x today's total crypto market, by 2030 |
One of the benefits of utilizing the new service is that there is no minimum amount to invest as the platform enables fractional ownership, which allows users to begin participating without a significant upfront investment. “You can now earn from T-Bills with amounts that suit your preferences,” Finblox said.
“At Finblox, our goal is to democratize finance and empower the crypto ecosystem with comprehensive financial services,” the company wrote. “The launch of tokenized US T-Bills on-chain marks a giant stride towards achieving this vision. By democratizing access to T-Bills, we empower you to diversify your portfolio with a trusted and globally recognized asset.”
According to Eugene Ng, co-founder of OpenEden, this partnership with Finblox is just “The first of the many [business-to-business] partnerships to be announced,” and the platform has put out an open call to other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols interested in offering their users access to TBILL. “[I] Am really excited with enabling ‘US risk-free rate’ on-chain access in South East Asia, a large unbanked populous region,” he said.
