The native token of the Hedera blockchain, HBAR, saw a remarkable 90% surge in value after a recent announcement from the HBAR Foundation led to confusion among the crypto community.
In a surprising turn of events, a BlackRock money market fund was tokenized on the Hedera blockchain, causing a 94% increase in the value of the Hedera token within just 24 hours. Despite popular belief, the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, was not directly involved in this on-chain movement.
On April 23, a post by the HBAR Foundation X, the group behind the Hedera network, indicated that blockchain firms Archax and Ownera had tokenized BlackRock’s ICS US Treasury Fund on the platform. A video released with the announcement seemed to imply a collaboration between Ownera, Archax, and BlackRock, with HBAR claiming to have brought the asset manager on-chain.
This led to confusion among crypto influencers, who misinterpreted the post, resulting in over 1.6 million views and 2,700 reposts in just 15 hours. Some believed that BlackRock had moved its $22.3 billion fund to the blockchain or had partnered with Archax and Ownera.
In reality, Archax, a digital asset exchange from London, and Ownera, an institutional-grade digital asset platform, collaborated with the HBAR Foundation to tokenize the MMF on Hedera. This follows abrdn plc, the largest active wealth manager in the UK and a key member of the Hedera Council, tokenizing its MMFs on the platform in 2023, marking a significant moment in the asset management sector.
Despite the confusion, Chris O’Connor, founder of the Cardano Ghost Fund DAO, clarified that BlackRock was not directly involved in the project. He criticized the HBAR Foundation for misleading framing of the announcement, likening it to claiming a partnership with a luxury brand after purchasing one of their products.
At the time of writing, the Hedera token was trading at $0.1415, showing a 60% increase in value within 24 hours. The trading volume for HBAR was $2.76 billion in the same period.
The recent confusion coincided with the approval of funding of 4.86 billion HBAR ($408 million at the time) by the Hedera Global Governing Council for future network expansion. This funding is part of the HBAR Foundation’s plans to grow its user base in 2024, following a successful year in 2023 where 33 billion transactions were conducted on the network.