El Salvador Is Getting Its First Tokenized U.S. Treasuries Offering

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Tokenized U.S. Treasuries are a booming market, and now they are coming to the nascent crypto hub of El Salvador.
NexBridge Digital Financial Solutions S.A de C.V, a digital asset issuer based in El Salvador that recently won digital asset service license from local regulators, has teamed up with Bitfinex Securities to offer the first regulated public tokenized T-Bill offering in the country.
Opening for business on Tuesday, the new offering aims to give access to T-Bill investments for individuals and organizations who were previously unable to invest in these products, the companies said. The product’s goal is to raise at least $30 million of deposits, Bitfinex Securities said in a press release.
The initial subscription for the product begins on Tuesday, and will be open until November 29. Investors can purchase the token with Tether’s stablecoin (USDT), with plans to make it available in bitcoin {{BTC}], too. Following the subscription period, the tokens will trade on Bitfinex Securities’ secondary market under the ticker USTBL. The token’s value is backed by BlackRock’s short-term Treasury bond ETF (iShares Treasury Bond 0-1yr UCITS).
Read more: An Interview With El Salvador’s Top Crypto Regulator: ‘Developing Countries Can Lead the Financial Revolution’
Tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) is a rapidly growing sector in the intersection of digital assets and traditional finance that involves placing assets such as bonds, credit and funds on blockchain rails. Participants do so in pursuit of faster settlements and increased efficiency compared to traditional financial plumbing.
Token versions of U.S. Treasury notes spearheaded tokenization efforts, tripling in market size in a year to $2.4 billion currently, rwa.xyz data shows.
“The inclusion of USTBL tokens in investment portfolios will enable investors to balance digital asset exposure with the stability of traditional finance, offering a new level of diversification that can help reduce overall portfolio risk,” Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, said in a statement.
Edited by Stephen Alpher.
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Krisztian Sandor is a reporter on the U.S. markets team focusing on stablecoins and institutional investment. He holds BTC and ETH.