BlackRock has added a number of additional blockchains to its tokenised money market fund.
TakeAway Points:
- BlackRock has added multiple additional blockchains to its tokenised money market fund.
- The news comes after cryptocurrencies saw a weeklong surge following Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election.
- The government has approved a $6.6 billion subsidy for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s U.S. semiconductor manufacturing facility in Phoenix, Arizona.
- This is the first major award to be completed under the $52.7 billion program created in 2022.
BlackRock expands tokenized money market
BlackRock has expanded its tokenized money market fund to include several more blockchains.
The investment manager said Wednesday that its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) is now available to investors on the Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, OP Mainnet, formerly known as Optimism, and Polygon blockchains. It initially launched the fund on Ethereum in March.
The BUIDL fund, which BlackRock debuted two months after iShares Bitcoin Trust, its popular bitcoin exchange-traded fund, gives investors an opportunity to earn U.S. dollar yields through a blockchain-based vehicle. The idea of tokenizing “real world assets” such as gold, a key aspect of decentralized finance, or DeFi, has gained popularity among financial institutions that are cautious on crypto assets but keen on the underlying blockchain technology.
“There’s some irony in the fact that with… [iShares Bitcoin Trust], we took a crypto native investment exposure and we put it in a traditional finance wrapper… and with tokenization, we’re taking traditional finance investment exposure, and we’re putting it in a crypto native wrapper,” Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, said in March.
“That dichotomy will persist for a while,” he added at the time. “But eventually, we expect there will be some convergence that looks like the best of the old system and the best of this new technology fused into a next-generation infrastructure set in finance.”
The BUIDL fund is tokenized by Securitize, a company BlackRock has invested in that specializes in the tokenization of real-world assets.
Trump’s victory in US presidential election raised cryptocurrencies
The announcement follows a weeklong rally in cryptocurrencies after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election. Polygon’s token climbed 28%, according to Coin Metrics. On the campaign trail, Trump promised more supportive regulations for crypto projects and businesses, a reversal from Biden administration policy, in which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has largely regulated the industry through enforcement actions, hampering growth.
DeFi is one of the most popular sectors among crypto market participants but has suffered from the lack of regulatory clarity, with tokens of some DeFi projects being classified as securities in SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase last year.
US Finalizes $6.6 Billion Chips Award For TSMC
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday that it has completed a $6.6 billion government subsidy for the Phoenix, Arizona-based semiconductor manufacturing facility of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The binding contract, after a preliminary agreement announced in April, is the first major award to be completed under the $52.7 billion program created in 2022.
It comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who criticized the program, takes office.
In April, TSMC agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona fab by 2030.
The Taiwanese company will produce the world’s most advanced 2 nanometer technology at its second Arizona fab expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona.
“When we started this, there were a lot of naysayers who said maybe TSMC will do 5 or 6 nanometer in the United States,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in an interview. “Actually, they are doing their most sophisticated chips in the United States.”
The TSMC award also includes up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans. Under the agreement, TSMC will receive cash as it meets project milestones. Commerce expects to release at least $1 billion to TSMC by year end, a senior official told reporters.
TSMC agreed to forgo stock buybacks for five years – subject to some exceptions – and share any excess profits with the U.S. government under an “upside sharing agreement.”
TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said in a statement the deal “helps us to accelerate the development of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology available in the U.S.”
The Chips and Science Act
Congress in 2022 approved the Chips and Science Act to boost domestic semiconductor output, which Raimondo called essential to getting TSMC and other chip investments. No leading-edge chips are currently produced in the United States.
“It didn’t happen on its own… We had to convince TSMC that they would want to expand,” Raimondo said, adding officials also had to convince American companies to buy U.S. made chips. “The market does not price in national security.”
Commerce has allocated $36 billion for chip projects, including $6.4 billion for Samsung in Texas, $8.5 billion for Intel and $6.1 billion for Micron Technology . Commerce is working to finalize those agreements before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Reuters reported on Saturday Commerce ordered TSMC to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers.
Raimondo did not confirm the department issued a directive to TSMC but said the United States needs to play offense and defense with China.
“Investing in TSMC to expand here is offense – defense is making sure that neither TSMC nor any other company sells our most sophisticated technology to China and violates our export controls,” Raimondo said, adding she was not saying TSMC had committed any violations.
“We take national security seriously and we look into every potential problem, whether it’s with companies we subsidize or not,” she added.
