Global asset manager Franklin Templeton’s blockchain-based money market fund has launched within the Arbitrum ecosystem, as real-world asset (RWA) tokenized funds gain traction among investors. Arbitrum is a popular scaling solution for Ethereum.
Franklin Templeton’s Nasdaq-listed OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, FOBXX, became accessible in digital wallets on the Arbitrum network on Thursday, the firm said in a statement. FOBXX’s launch on Arbitrum is part of its issuer’s efforts to widen access to the fund among retail investors, with a focus on rolling out the fund in highly secure and active networks.
“The cost of using the network [and] the resiliency and the scalability of the network are all… factors that we take into consideration when we are building [FOBXX’s] wallet infrastructure into various blockchain ecosystems,” Franklin Templeton head of digital assets Roger Bayston told Decrypt on Thursday.
“We're all about listening to the consumer and the client and giving them what they want,” he added.
Franklin Templeton Enables Peer-to-Peer Trades of Blockchain Fund
Leading asset manager Franklin Templeton will allow customers to exchange shares of its Nasdaq-listed OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) with each other. In a Thursday announcement, the company said that holders of the BENJI token can now transfer shares directly with each other on a public blockchain. FOBXX was launched in 2021 and exposed investors to American government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements. It initially ran on the Stellar blockchain, but last year was made avai...
FOBXX’s widening accessibility to investors comes at a time when demand for tokenized real-world asset funds is sky-high. The largest such fund, BlackRock's BUIDL fund, has paid out $7 million in dividends since its launch in March. The tokenized treasury market more than doubled to $1.8 billion from January to June 2024, according to a Dune dashboard published by crypto firm 21 Shares.
FOBXX is a fund that invests “at least 99.5% of its total assets in U.S. government securities, cash and repurchase agreements collateralized fully by [the] U.S. government,” according to its issuer’s website. It aims to offer relatively high returns to institutional and retail investors by investing in government securities and related instruments.
The fund held roughly $420 million in assets under management as of July 31, according to its issuer’s data, making it the second largest offering on the market.
BlackRock Unveils ‘BUIDL’ Tokenized Asset Fund on Ethereum—With $5 Million Buy-In
After leaving financial and crypto market watchers reading tea leaves to divine its next big move, investment titan BlackRock spilled the tea late Wednesday on its tokenized asset fund. Dubbed ‘BUIDL,’ it will be built on the Ethereum network and is the company's first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain. The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund was first registered in the British Virgin Islands last year. “BUIDL will offer investors important benefits by enabling the issu...
FOBXX first debuted on the Stellar network in 2021, positioned as the first U.S. registered fund to utilize a public blockchain. Since then, it has also become available on Polygon, broadening its reach to investors.
The fund’s launch on Arbitrum comes roughly five months after Franklin Templeton applied to the network’s Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP). Arbitrum has a market capitalization of roughly $1.8 billion.
The process leading up to FOBXX’s debut required much more than just Arbitrum’s approval, however.
“What’s super important for us is to not just work with the network’s team, but also with our friends in the… SEC to speak about why [the fund’s launch] improves outcomes for all the stakeholders that are involved,” Bayston said.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
