Circle Expands $635M Tokenized Treasury Fund to Solana Amid Rapid RWA Growth

Circle (CRCL), the crypto company known for its USDC stablecoin, introduced on Wednesday its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund offering to Solana, expanding its footprint to the blockchain known for low-cost transactions and fast settlement times.

The move expands the USYC token beyond Ethereum, Near, Base and Canton networks and the planned addition of BNB Chain.

USYC is a tokenized version of a short-duration U.S. government money market fund. The fund is redeemable in real time into USDC, Circle’s dollar-backed stablecoin, and is available only to non-U.S. institutional investors who pass know-your-customer (KYC) checks. That makes USYC permissioned by design, in contrast to other tokens commonly used in decentralized finance (DeFi).

The broader tokenized treasury market has seen explosive growth recently, swelling to nearly $8 billion today from $2.4 billion in a year, RWA.xyz data shows. That increase reflects the growing institutional appetite for real-world assets (RWAs) on blockchain rails, particularly yield-bearing government securities. They are increasingly used as collateral for lending and margin trading, or as a building block for other yield-generating strategies.

With a market cap of $635 million, USYC is the fifth-largest tokenized treasury fund, according to data from RWA.xyz.

Solana’s integration adds new potential use cases, including using USYC as margin collateral for derivatives trading or as a yield-bearing asset in Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. However, USYC requires protocols to integrate eligibility checks and wallet allow-listing, a hurdle that many applications will need further development to support it.