OKX Lets Institutions Use BlackRock BUIDL as Collateral

OKX has added BlackRock’s tokenized BUIDL US Treasury fund to an off-exchange collateral framework with Standard Chartered, the companies announced on Tuesday. The arrangement lets eligible institutional and VIP clients use the yield-bearing token as trading margin while the underlying assets remain in Standard Chartered custody. The feature is live through OKX Middle East.

Under the program, clients can post BUIDL held by Standard Chartered as collateral for trading on OKX, or they can deposit the token directly on the exchange. Standard Chartered keeps the assets separate from OKX’s balance sheet. OKX continues to perform real-time margining and liquidation using its internal risk systems and treats BUIDL as fungible with USD and dollar-denominated stablecoins for margin calculations.

BUIDL is a BlackRock money market-style fund tokenized by Securitize. The fund invests in cash, US Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, and distributes yield onchain. When posted as collateral under the custody framework, the underlying asset and its yield remain with the bank while the token functions inside OKX’s margin architecture.

The framework builds on a collateral mirroring program between OKX and Standard Chartered launched last year. The BUIDL addition is initially available to eligible institutional and VIP clients trading through OKX Middle East, with expansion planned subject to jurisdictional rules and client demand.

Rifad Mahasneh, CEO of OKX Middle East, North Africa and the CIS, said the change demonstrates how tokenized assets can be used within trading systems rather than held passively. He described the arrangement as unique for combining regulated custody, a major asset manager and a global systemically important bank as an off-exchange custodian.

Standard Chartered will maintain client ownership of the underlying assets and their yield while the token is used as collateral. The firms have not published detailed margin call rules for stressed market conditions.

Exchanges and financial firms are integrating tokenized real-world assets and off-exchange custody arrangements to give institutional clients ways to earn yield on capital that would otherwise sit idle when posted as collateral. Other venues have implemented tokenized treasury products and similar custody-to-exchange collateral links to support institutional trading flows.