In a surprising turn of events, the native token of the decentralized ledger platform Hedera, HBAR, experienced a significant price surge of over 100% during the early hours of Tuesday. Starting from a low of $0.0875, HBAR skyrocketed to reach the $0.1821 mark by Wednesday. 

The sudden surge was triggered by the news of BlackRock’s tokenized fund, BUIDL, which generated high expectations among HBAR investors regarding a potential collaboration between the prominent asset manager and the Hedera protocol.

Launched by BlackRock in March 2024, BUIDL operates as a tokenized fund on the Ethereum blockchain, providing US dollar yields through tokenization. 

Initially, an announcement led to confusion among investors, who mistakenly believed that BlackRock would directly tokenize the fund on the Hedera network. This misunderstanding triggered a significant surge in the HBAR price.

Upon closer examination of the announcement, it became clear that BlackRock and Hedera had no direct connection, although the initial reaction to the news was noteworthy. 

Crypto analysts, who use the pseudonym “CrediBull” on social media site X (formerly Twitter), shed light on the situation, emphasizing that explicit permission from BlackRock was unnecessary to list tokenized versions of their funds. 

It was not a deliberate decision by BlackRock to tokenize on Hedera; rather, an existing platform on the network took the liberty of tokenizing one of BlackRock’s funds. However, for the analyst, the fact that a platform on Hedera was among the first to tokenize a BlackRock fund reflects the platform’s leadership in the space.

Further examination reveals that Archax, the company behind the tokenized BlackRock fund on Hedera, is a portfolio company of ABRDN Investments, the largest asset manager in the UK, with approximately $500 billion in assets under management (AUM). 

Additionally, CrediBull emphasizes that BlackRock happens to be the fourth-largest shareholder of ABRDN. Notably, around ten months ago, Archax tokenized one of ABRDN’s money market funds, preceding their launch of the BlackRock fund.

An interview by the Head of Digital Assets at ABRDN clarifies their involvement in the tokenization process on Archax. A “distribution agreement” was signed permitting the tokenization to proceed. If a similar agreement were reached with BlackRock, it would imply the asset manager’s endorsement of the product.

Ultimately, the interview with the head of digital assets at ABRDN underscores the fact that significant players are utilizing and contributing to the growth of Hedera behind the scenes.

Following the clarification of the situation, the price of HBAR has retraced to $0.1199. Nevertheless, it remains up 8% over the past 24 hours and has recorded an impressive gain of nearly 60% in the past seven days. 

CoinGecko data highlights a substantial surge in HBAR’s trading volume, which has increased by over 1,100% in the past few days. This surge in trading volume indicates the widespread confusion sparked by the initial news announcement.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com

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