Goldman Sachs is now using tokenized U.S. Treasuries as collateral in derivatives transactions. That single sentence, buried in a broader roundup of the tokenized real-world asset market crossing $25 billion, is one of the more consequential data points in institutional crypto this year.
Collateral is the plumbing of derivatives markets. When a bank posts collateral against a trade, it needs to be liquid, trusted, and operationally reliable. Tokenized Treasuries checking that box at Goldman Sachs is not a proof-of-concept. It is production infrastructure.
How We Got Here
Goldman’s digital asset ambitions date back to 2022, when the bank issued a bond with the European Investment Bank on a private blockchain. Since then, the firm built out GS DAP, its tokenization platform, and used it to issue a sovereign green bond for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and to support money market fund token creation with BNY Mellon.
The money market fund work is directly relevant to the collateral story. BNY Mellon used GS DAP to issue mirror tokens representing shares in money market funds from BlackRock, Fidelity, Federated Hermes, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Those tokens can be pledged as collateral, transferred, and redeemed programmatically. Extending that same logic to Treasuries is a natural next step.
Mathew McDermott, Goldman’s head of digital assets, said at TOKEN2049 in Dubai that the firm is exploring 24/7 trading for tokenized Treasuries and money market fund shares in the U.S. The always-on angle matters for collateral management, where a margin call at 11 p.m. on a Friday currently requires a T+1 settlement cycle that does not close until Monday.
The Broader RWA Picture
Goldman is not alone. The tokenized real-world asset market has grown to roughly $25 billion in total on-chain value, up from around $5 billion at the start of 2025. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which holds short-dated Treasuries and passes yield to token holders daily, has grown to nearly $3 billion in assets. BlackRock recently brought BUIDL to Uniswap liquidity pools, adding a DeFi distribution channel to what is otherwise a product aimed squarely at institutional buyers.
Ethereum still holds around 65% of the RWA market by value, though Solana has seen its tokenized asset base grow sharply. JPMorgan’s Onyx platform has processed over $900 billion in tokenized repo transactions. DTCC and Canton Network are in production with institutional tokenization workflows.
The common thread is that tokenized Treasuries are moving from a novel asset class to a default product. McKinsey has projected that tokenized assets could reach $2 trillion by 2030. Boston Consulting Group puts the long-run ceiling at $16 trillion.
What the Collateral Use Case Unlocks
Using tokenized assets as derivatives collateral is structurally different from simply holding them in a fund. Collateral has to move fast, be accepted by counterparties, and survive stress scenarios. The fact that Goldman has integrated tokenized Treasuries into that workflow suggests the internal credit, legal, and operational frameworks are in place.
The open question is interoperability. Collateral pools that live on different chains or private networks create fragmentation. Desks trying to route flows or arbitrage across venues run into credit intermediation infrastructure that has not yet caught up with the tokenization layer. That gap is real and will likely drive the next phase of infrastructure buildout, whether through cross-chain messaging protocols, shared settlement layers, or some new form of clearinghouse.
For now, Goldman using tokenized Treasuries as derivatives collateral is a marker. The technology is not being evaluated. It is being used.