Franklin Templeton’s $420M OnChain Fund Now Available on Arbitrum and Ethereum

• Franklin Templeton has launched its tokenized Fund on the Arbitrum and Ethereum ecosystem.
• Many mainstream firms are looking to change the Real World Asset tokenization ecosystem.

American asset management firm Franklin Templeton is deepening its foothold in the tokenization ecosystem. The company said its OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX) is now available on the Ethereum Blockchain. This FOBXX deployment on Ethereum is through Arbitrum, one of its dominant Layer-2 scaling solutions.

Franklin Templeton is Expanding its Footprint

Franklin is one of the top asset management firms that understands the benefits of blockchain in tokenization. When it launched the OnChain US Government Money Fund, its goal remained to leverage government-backed securities. The Fund will be deployed on various blockchains to secure the transaction and record share ownership.

When the Fund launched in 2021l, it became the first to leverage blockchain. In April, the version of the Fund on the Stellar Network hit $270 million in Assets Under Management (AUM). The dedicated webpage for the Fund shows that the locked assets have grown to $420.24 million across all chains.

As revealed by the firm, the deployment on Arbitrum will initially be available to institutional wallets. Through Arbitrum, Franklin Templeton hopes to expand institutional investors’ access to Decentralized Finance (DeFi). This move will also help FOBXX reach an entirely new audience. Roger Bayston stated:

Expanding into the Arbitrum ecosystem is an important step on our journey to empower our asset management capabilities with blockchain technology,

Beyond FOBXX, Franklin Templeton’s footprint in the crypto ecosystem also extends to Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF products. As highlighted in our previous report, Franklin was among the asset managers whose Spot Ethereum ETF product recently received approval from the US SEC.

Since its inception, the Franklin Bitcoin ETF product EZBC has recorded a total inflow of $379 million. 

The Growing Mainstream Tokenization Agenda

Franklin Templeton is one of many top US-based asset managers with a functional tokenization fund. As noted in our earlier post, we revealed that BlackRock’s BUIDL investors now have access to USDC via Circle’s new feature.

The firm’s move into tokenization through the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) also underscores its commitment to harnessing the best of blockchain in its product suits.

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is now a growing concept in Web3. Protocols like VeChain are designing customized solutions to adequately serve this industry. As discussed earlier, VeChain is deploying resources to change the RWA tokenization ecosystem through its MAAS platform.

Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, VeChain, and others’ focus on tokenization is justifiable. This market is projected to hit a valuation of $16 trillion by 2030. By getting in early, these entities might gain a major boost and secure a significant market share in the long term.