Franklin Templeton Brings $435 million Tokenised Money Market Fund to Aptos Blockchain

Trillion-dollar asset managers Franklin Templeton have joined the Web3 party over the past few years, becoming one of the industry’s staunchest advocates. The company has several blockchain-related ventures, including a spot Bitcoin ETF, an upcoming mutual fund on Solana, and the popular tokenised fund FOBXX. 

The importance of massive institutions like Franklin Templeton entering the crypto scene can’t be overstated, adding an air of legitimacy and prestige to what is now a fully entrenched financial sector.

And Franklin Templeton is showing no signs of slowing down its adoption, announcing the expansion of its tokenised fund to a new blockchain.

Related: ANZ Joins Chainlink, Singapore’s MAS Project Guardian for Tokenised Real-World Assets 

TradFi and DeFi Draw Closer Together as Franklin Templeton Partners with Aptos

Franklin Templeton’s tokenised fund is the second-largest on the market, enjoying a market cap of US $435m (AU $631m). The OnChain US Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX) has garnered popularity thanks to its investment in risk-averse assets like US Treasury securities – paired with the efficiency of a distributed ledger.

The financial institution is now bringing its on-chain fund to a fifth blockchain – the Layer 1 project Aptos.

Aptos is a relatively new L1, based on the unsuccessful venture from Meta (formerly Facebook) in building the decentralised payment system Libra. 

One of Aptos’ clear goals is to integrate traditional financial products into the DeFi universe, something they have edged closer toward with their partnership with Franklin Templeton.

To reach that future, we need to connect not just the TradFi and DeFi worlds, but EVM and non-EVM networks as well.

Bashar Lazaar, Head of Grants and Ecosystem at Aptos

BENJI Tokens to be Distributed on Aptos Chain

Aptos joins Ethereum (through the L2 network Arbitrum), Stellar, Polygon and Avalanche as the blockchain networks collaborating with Franklin Templeton to offer FOBXX. 

According to Franklin Templeton, their in-house blockchain-based ledger Benji, was able to be seamlessly integrated with the Aptos Network. 

One BENJI token is equivalent to one share of the tokenised fund.

A key reason for Aptos’ partnership with the asset managers is due to the network’s coding language. Aptos uses Move, which makes the protocol unique compared to L1 alternatives like Ethereum which uses the more popular Solidity language. 

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