A tokenized treasury has two prices that are easy to confuse. The NAV is what one token is worth according to the fund, calculated on the fund’s own schedule. The market price is what the token last changed hands for on-chain, which can happen at any hour. When the two differ, the difference is what a holder pays or gives up for leaving now instead of going through the fund’s own subscription and redemption process. It is the same logic as an ETF trading at a premium or a discount, applied to a token.
The vocabulary below comes from the SEC’s explanation of ETFs. Four tokens (BUIDL, OUSG, thBILL and USDtb) then show where each NAV comes from, who can redeem at it and what is left for everyone else.
What a tokenized treasury is
A tokenized treasury is a fund share recorded as a token. The label “treasury” covers less than it sounds, because holdings differ from fund to fund.
- BUIDL. Per its launch release of 20 March 2024, the fund invests 100% of its total assets in cash, US Treasury bills and repurchase agreements. BlackRock Financial Management is the investment manager. Bank of New York Mellon is custodian and administrator. Securitize is transfer agent and tokenization platform.
- OUSG. Ondo’s token is invested in funds issued by managers such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree and Fidelity. It also holds bank deposits and USDC for liquidity.
- thBILL. Theo describes it as an onchain money market instrument with exposure to short-term US treasury rates and commercial paper. It was built with Wellington Management’s ULTRA fund and Fidelity International’s FILQ fund. Theo’s docs add that FILQ holds asset-backed commercial paper, which they describe as carrying credit exposure.
- USDtb. A stablecoin, not a fund share. Its docs say the reserves are tokenized US treasury fund products alongside a stablecoin reserve for rapid redemptions, with BUIDL named as the initial backing. Since 13 October 2025 issuance, redemption and reserve management sit with Anchorage Digital Bank.
NAV and market price: the ETF version
The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy explains the idea in its investor bulletin on ETFs (updated 23 February 2023). NAV per share is the value of all the fund’s assets minus its liabilities, divided by the number of shares. An ETF must calculate it every business day. ETF shares trade through the day on exchanges at market prices.
The bulletin says the market price will typically be more or less than NAV per share, because it moves during the day with the prices of the underlying assets and with demand for the ETF itself. A price above NAV is a premium. A price below it is a discount. Both vary over time.
What keeps the two close is access. In the bulletin’s description, Authorized Participants are the parties that buy and redeem shares directly with the ETF, in large blocks called creation units. They can trade with the fund at NAV and on the market, so they can arbitrage a difference. The market price is expected to move back toward NAV. For everyone else, the bulletin warns, you may end up paying more or less for shares than the underlying assets are worth.
Tokenized treasuries inherit that structure: a fund strikes the NAV and a token trades. A limited group can deal with the fund at NAV while the rest face the market.
Four tokens, four ways NAV reaches the chain
BUIDL: a $1 target, yield paid as new tokens
BUIDL’s launch release says it seeks to offer a stable value of $1 per token and pays accrued dividends to investors’ wallets as new tokens. The same release says it may not be able to maintain $1.00 per token at all times. A reader needs both statements, the target and the caveat.
The payout schedule has changed. The release and Securitize’s May 2024 application on the Arbitrum forum describe monthly distribution. A Securitize announcement dated 23 January 2025 says investors now receive dividends in their wallets daily, Monday to Friday. It also says redemptions are no longer processed once a day at 3pm ET but at multiple intervals through the day.
Redemption is at NAV per share, which the May 2024 application says is generally expected to be $1.00. Because yield arrives as more tokens, the NAV stays flat while the quantity grows. Tokens can move 24/7/365 but between pre-approved investors, so any market price for BUIDL is a price among approved holders.
OUSG: a NAV pushed on-chain once a business day
At the end of each business day Ondo updates the fund’s NAV for the performance of its investments and any accrued fees and expenses. The NAV per token is the share class NAV divided by the number of tokens. Ondo then updates its on-chain price oracle to match.
The docs say this typically lands between 4pm and 6pm ET and call it a manual process that can take longer. Weekend and holiday yield arrives with the next update, as a rising NAV per token rather than extra tokens.
Minting and redeeming happen at NAV. Instant mint and redeem run around the clock within daily limits. Instant redemption can also be limited by the USDC available for it. The standard route typically pays out the next business day for tokens sent before 4pm ET. Tokens can be freely transferred between investors onboarded to Ondo’s Qualified Access funds.
thBILL: a price you read from the contract
thBILL is an accumulating token. A holder’s balance never changes by itself. What changes is the amount of USDC each token can be redeemed for, readable from the contract as convertToAssets. For how a rising redemption value differs from a rebasing balance, see yield-bearing stablecoins.
Theo’s docs say that value updates when the underlying funds strike their NAV on fund business days and stays flat in between. Weekend and holiday interest arrives in the next strike, so the value steps up instead of climbing. The docs add that it does not move with trading activity: selling thBILL on a secondary market at another price is a decision about liquidity, not about what the token is worth at redemption.
Direct minting and redeeming is gated to KYC/KYB parties. A redemption pays USDC or USDT rather than the underlying treasuries. It runs through the issuer’s process on its schedule. Holders without whitelisting exit on secondary venues, which Theo’s help center lists as Morpho, Pendle and Hyperliquid.
Theo’s help center says the trading price may differ from NAV and compares that to ETFs trading at a premium or discount. It adds that Authorized Participants arbitrage meaningful spreads. That is the issuer’s description of how a gap gets closed.
USDtb: fund shares behind a dollar token
USDtb has no NAV of its own to compare with. Its price question is whether the token trades near the dollar it is built around. Its reserves are tokenized fund shares that each have a NAV. Mint and redeem are limited to customers of Anchorage Digital Bank, so every other holder gets in or out by trading the token with someone else.
Why the two numbers part
Four causes recur across these tokens.
Different clocks. NAV is struck once per business day, while the token trades on a chain that does not close, including nights, weekends and holidays. Part of an apparent gap can be age: Friday’s NAV set against a Sunday market.
Different doors. Redeeming at NAV is available to parties who clear the issuer’s checks: approved investors, KYC/KYB parties or Anchorage customers. Arbitrage needs that door. Where the parties who can use it face limits or must wait for the issuer, there is less to push the market back toward NAV.
Different exit speeds. A redemption runs on the issuer’s schedule, whether that is several intervals a day or the next business day. A sale on the market is immediate. A discount can be the price of not waiting.
A NAV that moves. NAV reflects the fund’s assets, fees and expenses. A fund’s NAV can move down as well as up. A stable $1 target is a design goal, not a guarantee, as the BUIDL release itself says.
Reading the pair
For a risk, treasury or protocol team, the two numbers answer different questions. The NAV answers what the fund says a token is worth at redemption, stamped with the time of the last strike. The market price answers what leaving costs now. A position marked at NAV and a position that has to be sold today can differ by exactly the gap.
A team can store both numbers with their timestamps rather than choosing one. It can ask who is able to close the gap and how fast, since a token whose holders can all redeem at NAV behaves differently from one where most holders cannot. It can also read a persistent gap as information about access and liquidity before treating it as an error in either number.
ML Data’s thBILL/USD and USDtb/USD pages are the market side of this pair. They show a rate read from on-chain trading and stamped with its block time, which a team can set beside the NAV an issuer publishes. thBILL sits on the yield-bearing RWA prices hub; USDtb is listed with the dollar tokens on the stablecoin prices hub. How an on-chain rate is measured is in DEX-native price feeds explained. The methodology page describes the approach.
Tokenized shares of listed companies raise a sharper clock problem, covered in tokenized stocks need price feeds too.
Sources
- Updated Investor Bulletin: Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, 23 February 2023
- BlackRock Launches Its First Tokenized Fund, BUIDL, on the Ethereum Network, Business Wire, 20 March 2024 (Nasdaq copy)
- Securitize Adds Features for BlackRock Tokenized Fund, Securitize announcement of 23 January 2025 (MarketsMedia copy)
- Securitize Markets (BUIDL) STEP application, Arbitrum forum, 4 May 2024
- thBILL, How thBILL generates yield and Mint & redeem, Theo Docs
- What Is thBILL? and How to Deposit and Withdraw thBILL, Theo Help Center
- Introduction and Mint & Redeem, USDtb Docs
- OUSG Overview, Yield, Redeeming and Instant limits, Ondo Docs
