TLDR:
- RWA integration reaches a new level as BlackRock’s $2.4B BUIDL fund goes live on UniswapX for 24/7 trading
- Apollo Global Management is authorized to acquire up to 90M MORPHO tokens over 48 months.
- MORPHO token surged 17.8% after Apollo’s formal cooperation agreement was publicly announced.
- Wall Street’s governance token purchases signal a major shift in institutional DeFi confidence.
RWA momentum reached a new milestone this week as BlackRock and Apollo Global Management moved beyond pilot programs into deep infrastructure integration.
BlackRock connected its tokenized fund to Uniswap’s trading rails, while Apollo signed a formal agreement with Morpho’s lending protocol.
Together, these moves mark a structural shift in how traditional asset managers are engaging with decentralized finance. Wall Street is no longer testing the waters; it is now actively building within them.
BlackRock Plugs BUIDL Into Uniswap’s Trading Infrastructure
BlackRock partnered with Securitize and Uniswap Labs to integrate its BUIDL fund into the UniswapX system. The fund currently holds approximately $2.4 billion in assets under management. Eligible institutional investors can now trade BUIDL against USDC around the clock, seven days a week.
Notably, the integration bypasses traditional AMM liquidity pools entirely. Instead, it uses UniswapX’s off-chain order routing system, which settles transactions on-chain.
Orders flow through a Request-for-Quote framework to whitelisted market makers, including Wintermute and Flowdesk, acting as solvers.
Sentora’s newsletter captured the weight of the moment, noting that “the era of testing is over,” and that Wall Street is now “actively utilizing decentralized protocols to trade and lend” tokenized assets.
Securitize handles compliance by pre-qualifying all participating wallets. This structure keeps institutional capital separate from non-KYC retail pools.
Beyond the technical setup, BlackRock also purchased an undisclosed amount of UNI governance tokens, marking its first direct financial engagement with a DeFi protocol’s governance structure.
Apollo Enters Decentralized Credit Through Morpho Agreement
Apollo Global Management, which oversees $940 billion in traditional assets, signed a formal cooperation agreement with Morpho.
The deal centers on building and scaling on-chain lending markets using Morpho’s infrastructure. Apollo and its affiliates are authorized to acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens over the next 48 months.
Sentora framed the broader trend clearly, stating that these institutions are “natively plugging tokenized assets into Uniswap’s liquidity rails and Morpho’s lending markets.”
The MORPHO token rallied 17.8% in the week following the announcement, according to CoinGecko data. Apollo’s acquisition strategy combines open-market purchases with over-the-counter transactions, with strict ownership caps and transfer restrictions built into the agreement.
Morpho’s architecture suits institutional needs because it allows permissionless market creation. Apollo can launch isolated lending pairs and custom vaults without waiting for a DAO governance vote.
This flexibility lets large managers set their own collateral ratios and interest rate parameters within a controlled environment.
Wall Street’s Growing Appetite for DeFi Governance Tokens
The RWA narrative is evolving beyond asset tokenization into active protocol ownership. Both BlackRock and Apollo are now acquiring governance tokens, a practice that traditional institutions previously avoided due to regulatory concerns.
As Sentora analyst Gabriel Halm put it, these firms view governance tokens as “essential infrastructure stakes, analogous to holding equity in a clearinghouse or a traditional exchange network.”
This shift also reflects a broader efficiency argument. Traditional markets carry T+1 or T+2 settlement delays and fragmented liquidity.
Halm noted that by “plugging tokenized Treasuries into decentralized routing and building structured credit on permissionless rails, institutions are actively upgrading their operational efficiency.”
These advantages are increasingly difficult for institutional managers to overlook as competition for yield tightens.
Meanwhile, the broader DeFi market shows mixed conditions. TVL and token supply remain flat, and leveraged ETH restaking strategies have moved into negative carry territory.
The debt-weighted average cost of borrowing ETH now sits at 3.40%, exceeding yields across all major liquid staking and restaking protocols tracked as of February 20, 2026.
The post RWA Goes Mainstream: BlackRock and Apollo Plug Billions Into Uniswap and Morpho Protocols appeared first on Blockonomi.
Source: https://blockonomi.com/rwa-goes-mainstream-blackrock-and-apollo-plug-billions-into-uniswap-and-morpho-protocols/
