A press release titled, "Moody's Ratings assigns Aaa-mf assessment to BlackRock's BUIDL fund," tells us, "Moody's Ratings (Moody's) has assigned an Aaa-mf assessment to BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund Ltd. (BUIDL or the "Fund"), a tokenized liquidity fund that seeks to maintain a net asset value of $1.00 per share. The Fund aims to preserve principal and provide liquidity to investors on demand by investing 100% of its assets in cash, short-term US Treasury instruments and repurchase agreements secured by such obligations. The Fund limits its investments to securities with maturities of 93 days or less."
Moody's tells us, "This Aaa-mf assessment reflects our view that the Fund will have a very strong ability to meet its objectives of preserving capital and providing liquidity on demand. The Fund's ability to meet these objectives is supported by the high credit quality and short duration of the assets in BUIDL's investment portfolio. We believe that the operational and technology risks that BUIDL is exposed to from tokenization and the digital asset ecosystem are well mitigated given its operational processes, legal structure, quality of its infrastructure and service providers, and furthermore the high credit quality and liquidity of its investment portfolio."
They continue, "Specifically, title and ownership of the shares maintained by the transfer agent supersedes the records maintained on the blockchain in the event of any discrepancy; and synchronization between traditional and blockchain records are performed on a continuous basis throughout the day. Additionally, all subscriptions and redemptions into the Fund are processed with fiat US dollars."
The release comments, "BUIDL's assets under management (AUM), which is currently approximately $2.3 billion, experienced periods of high volatility since the fund's inception and we would expect that may continue going forward. The primary driver of the AUM volatility is that the investors in BUIDL are participants in the digital asset ecosystem which often experiences high volatility in asset pricing and flows, which leads to the participants redeeming from BUIDL. Furthermore, BUIDL's investor base does have concentration in its top three shareholders, which increases liquidity risk. The shareholder concentration and the volatility in BUIDL's net flows are well mitigated given the high liquidity and credit quality of BUIDL's investment portfolio of short term US Treasury obligations."
It adds, "BUIDL is a limited company excepted from the definition of 'investment company' under the Investment Company Act pursuant to Section 3(c)(7) of that Act domiciled in the British Virgin Islands. While it is not a regulated money market fund, Moody's assesses BUIDL under its Money Market Fund Assessment Framework. The rationale is that BUIDL's investment objectives of preservation of principal and provision of liquidity to investors upon demand, are principally consistent with that of a money market fund. Furthermore, we expect the fund's manager, BlackRock Financial Management, Inc., will manage BUIDL in a fashion similar to its Aaa-mf rated 2a-7 US Treasury money market funds."
A separate release, "Moody's Ratings assigns Aaa-mf assessment to Fidelity International's tokenized liquidity fund," states, "Moody's Ratings (Moody's) has assigned an Aaa-mf assessment to USD Digital Liquidity Fund SP (the "Fund"), a digitally native liquidity fund, part of Fidelity International Strategies Funds SPC, a segregated portfolio company domiciled in the Cayman Islands. This fund is managed by FIL Investments International."
It says, "The Fund issues tokenized units, which are digital representation of units in the Fund registered on a public blockchain. The Fund is designed for institutional investors and has no direct exposure to stablecoins or any other crypto assets. The Fund will offer near-instant liquidity and 24/7 redemptions, subject to available liquidity."
Moody's writes, "The assignment of the Aaa-mf assessment reflects our view that the Fund will have a very strong ability to meet its objectives of capital preservation and high liquidity. This is supported by the fact that it will follow the same investment strategy as the Aaa-mf-assessed Irish-domiciled low-volatility net asset value (LVNAV) fund, Fidelity Institutional Liquidity Fund plc - US Dollar fund. Although the Cayman Islands regulatory regime does not incorporate a formal money market fund classification, the Fund's investment strategy, liquidity management practices, and governance framework will be aligned with the European Union regulation applicable to LVNAV funds, including the active monitoring and management of daily and weekly liquidity buffers."
They also tell us, "The Fund's weighted average maturity will be below 60 days, and we expect the Fund to maintain a very strong liquidity profile. The Fund will hold a significant portion of its assets in overnight deposits and maintain at least 10% of assets maturing daily and 30% maturing weekly. As a result, we anticipate the Fund will have very low exposure to market risk. We expect that modest shareholder concentration risk during the Fund's ramp-up period will diminish as the Fund grows in size and its shareholder base diversifies."
The second release says, "The Fund is intended to provide enhanced operational flexibility, including the ability to offer near-instant liquidity and 24/7 redemptions through a waterfall of liquidity features. Such instant liquidity is not guaranteed and is subject to available liquidity. Redemption requests submitted outside market hours that cannot be met will be queued and processed in order once market hours resume. In addition, where liquidity is provided outside market hours, the Fund will charge redeeming investors a redemption fee. Given that both the queuing mechanism and the liquidity fee are clearly and transparently disclosed in the prospectus, we will not lower the Fund's assessment if they are activated outside market hours. However, any suspension of liquidity or application of liquidity fees during market hours would result in a lower assessment."
It explains, "The Fund issues tokenized units, which represent investors' economic interests, which will initially be recorded on the Ethereum public blockchain and subsequently on ZKsync. Legal ownership of shares is reflected in an authoritative off chain register maintained by the Transfer Agent (Apex Fund Services (Malta) Limited). The service providers participating in the tokenization value chain possess relevant expertise in institutional digital asset transaction processing."
Moody's comments, "Tokenization does not alter the nature of the Fund's underlying assets or the Fund's regulatory framework as it provides a digital representation of ownership that coexists with conventional record-keeping. Subscriptions and redemptions can be processed either on-chain through select stablecoins or off-chain in U.S. dollars through standard banking rails for approved investors. This arrangement enhances resilience by ensuring uninterrupted operations in the event of blockchain malfunctions or outages. As with other tokenized instruments, the structure introduces additional operational and technological risks. The Fund's legal ownership framework operates independently of the blockchain layer, ensuring that investor rights are not contingent on distributed ledger functionality. Furthermore, the permissioned nature of the smart contracts limits token interaction to approved participants only, reducing exposure to operational, governance and compliance risks."
Finally, Moody's also published, "USD Digital Liquidity Fund SP," which says, "Fidelity's new 24 hour liquidity fund will attract digital investors, bring new risks On 6 May 2026, asset manager Fidelity International launched the first money market fund (MMF) that allows investors to redeem their money 24 hours a day rather than just during market hours. The tokenized fund is likely to attract institutional investors in digital assets, expanding Fidelity International's customer base. However, it will also expose the company to new operational risks that will require robust management. The Cayman Islands-domiciled USD Digital Liquidity Fund SP, the first prime tokenized MMF assessed at Aaa-mf by Moody's, resembles a classic EU low volatility net asset value (LVNAV) money market fund in its investment objectives and asset quality."
For more on Tokenized Money Market Funds, see these recent Crane Data News stories: "JPMAM Launches 2nd Tokenized MMF" (5/14/26), "BlackRock Files for Tokenized MMFs" (5/11/26), "Northern Talks Tokenization, Deposits" (4/22/26), "Earnings: JP Morgan Talks AI Cash Allocation Tool; BNY on Tokenization" (4/20/26), "Invesco to Manage SuperState Tokenized USTB; Weekly MF Port Holdings" (3/25/26), "OMFIF on Tokenised Money Funds" (3/18/26), "Federated's Donahue Talks Tokenized Money Funds; Yields Dip to 3.47%" (3/17/26), "Northern Trust A.M. Launches Tokenized Treasury Digital Enabled Shares" (3/3/26), "BNP Paribas Debuts Tokenized MMF" (2/23/26), "Western Adds Tokenized MMF Class" (1/14/26), "Boston Fed Paper Examines Vulnerabilities of MM ETFs, Tokenized MMFs" (1/7/26), "More from Irish Funds' Tokenization Paper; Decrypt Explains Stablecoins" (12/29/25), "JPMAM Liquidity Insight: Tokenization Transforming Money Market Funds" (12/24/25), "Amundi Tokenises Shares of EUR MMF" (12/22/25), "JP Morgan Launches Tokenized MMF, My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY)" (12/17/25), "Bank for International Settlements Primer on Tokenized Money Funds" (12/2/25), "TD Securities Writes on Stablecoins, Tokenized Money Funds, Digital" (11/5/25), "NY Fed Blog Says Money Funds Dominate Tokenization To Date; Stability?" (9/25/25), "IMMFA on Tokenization of MMFs in Europe; Tether USDT; Fidelity Digital" (9/22/25), and "BNY's LiquidityDirect Portal Announces Plans to Tokenize Money Funds" (7/24/25).
