Franklin Templeton Expands Tokenized Fund to Avalanche Blockchain

Franklin Templeton, a global investment firm managing over $1.6 trillion in assets, has expanded its tokenized money market fund to Avalanche.

On August 22, Franklin Templeton announced that its OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund had extended to the Avalanche blockchain due to growing investor demand. This expansion follows Franklin Templeton’s recent launch of its FOBXX fund on Ethereum’s layer-2 network, Arbitrum. FOBXX is also available on Stellar and Polygon.

“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.”

John Wu, President of Ava Labs, expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration.

Franklin Templeton launched the money market fund in 2021, allowing investors to earn yield from U.S. treasuries. The firm uses its BENJI token to represent a single share of FOBXX, which investors can purchase using the USDC stablecoin through their Benji wallets. Holders can also transfer their fund shares peer-to-peer on-chain.

Roger Bayston, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton, noted that bringing the Benji platforms to Avalanche “further expands access to our first-of-its-kind tokenized money market fund.”

The tokenized U.S. treasuries market is on an upward trajectory. Data from real-world assets platforms show the total value of tokenized treasuries at over $1.92 billion as of August 22. FOBXX has a market cap of over $424 million, trailing behind the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, which currently leads with over $502 million.

In terms of blockchain networks, Ethereum holds the vast majority of the market value at over $1.3 billion, while Stellar, Solana, and Mantle follow with $434 million, $48 million, and $30 million, respectively.

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