Franklin Templeton, a global investment firm with $1.6T in assets under management, has expanded its L1 blockchain footprint by extending the availability of its first-of-its-kind on-chain money market fund to the Avalanche network.
The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX or the Fund) was incepted in 2021 and is “the first and only U.S.-registered mutual fund to leverage a public blockchain as the system of record to process transactions and record share ownership.”
Due to its broad scope of capabilities and activity, “including the growth of tokenized assets, the landscape of institutional participants leveraging Avalanche‘s technology has swelled over the years.”
One share of the $420 million Fund is represented “by one BENJI token.”
Token holders can gain exposure to “the Fund through the Benji Investments app.”
Franklin Templeton also recently announced “enhanced utility for the fund compared to those offered by traditional financial market rails.”
Benji wallet holders may now convert USDC stablecoin “to fund their investment in shares of FOBXX and may transfer shares peer-to-peer on the public blockchain.”
In the future there may be additional utility “for the fund such as secondary market trading and collateral mobility.”
The tokenized U.S. money market fund (MMF) market has “grown to $1.81 billion at present, partly because blockchain-enabled funds strive to offer a wider range of capabilities, and investors are seeking a return on their tokenized fiat holdings.”
Institutions have increasingly been exploring “the combination of blockchain, smart contract, and tokenization technology as a means of upgrading financial services infrastructure and institutional workflows.”
A number of both sell- and buy-side institutions, “including Franklin Templeton, have been leveraging the Avalanche network to pursue their digital asset strategies.”
Avalanche’s EVM compatibility, “sub-second transaction finality, low transaction fees, customizability, and impressive consistency have proven compelling for institutional deployments.”
Institutions are drawn to the suite of enterprise-grade infrastructure and “increased focus on tokenization and on-chain finance.”
John Wu, President at Ava Labs said:
“I’m thrilled to see the Avalanche platform supporting the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund. Franklin Templeton shares a mutual commitment to developing transformative digital financial products and services that will meet on-chain investor demand today and bring off-chain capital and users into the ecosystem tomorrow.”
Since 2018, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets “has been building blockchain-based technology solutions, running node validators, and developing a wide range of investment strategies.”
The firm’s dedicated digital assets research team leverages fundamental “tokenomic” analysis, insights from an embedded data science team, and deep industry connections “to help inform product development and investment decisions.”
Given MMFs’ crucial and foundational role in financial markets, Benji marks “a key puzzle piece within the rapidly evolving Avalanche ecosystem.”
This collaboration highlights Avalanche’s growth “of institutional infrastructure and primitives as it helps to drive forward the future of finance.”
Individual investors can gain exposure to FOBXX “through the Benji Investments app, available in mobile app stores for Android and Apple devices.”
Institutional investors can gain exposure “through the Benji Institutional web portal, Franklin Templeton’s proprietary blockchain-integrated recordkeeping system.”
They may hold their wallets on the Avalanche network “upon request and subject to eligibility.”
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