Franklin Templeton’s 380 Million Dollars BENJI Token Upgrade Exclusively Targets Institutional Investors

Crypto News– Franklin Templeton, a prominent asset manager, introduced peer-to-peer transfer capabilities for BENJI Token, its dollar-pegged yield-bearing token, on Thursday.

However, access to this transfer feature is presently limited to institutional investors who already possess the token, as confirmed by a company representative.

Franklin Templeton’s 380 Million Dollars BENJI Token Upgrade Exclusively Targets Institutional Investors

BENJI Token symbolizes shares in Franklin Templeton’s $380 million Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX), which debuted on the Stellar blockchain in 2021.

Although the token can be generated on the Polygon PoS blockchain, over 99% of the supply has been minted on Stellar, an established blockchain that recently started rolling out Ethereum-style smart contracts.

As of Friday evening, blockchain data indicated that no investors who had minted BENJI tokens had utilized the option to transfer them.

Lisa Tibbitts, the company’s Vice President of Communications, expressed optimism about the growing adoption of peer-to-peer transfers as additional wallets on the BENJI Token Investments platform gain access to this functionality.

Last month, BlackRock ventured into tokenisation with the launch of the BlackRock US Dollar Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, known as BUIDL. Investors gained the ability to transfer BUIDL upon its launch.

This week, the fund surpassed $300 million in assets under management, as per DefiLlama data, albeit with roughly 90% of assets concentrated among five wallets.

Together, Franklin Templeton and BlackRock control 61% of the $1.1 billion tokenised treasuries market, according to RWA.xyz.

While Franklin Templeton manages the largest individual tokenised treasuries fund, BlackRock’s substantially larger scale, overseeing approximately $9 trillion more than Templeton, underscores its dominance.

Bernstein analysts hailed the launch of BUIDL as a pivotal moment in financial markets, likening it to the ETF revolution of the past two decades. They view it as the inaugural large-scale trial for institutional investors to experience the round-the-clock instant settlement benefits of blockchain technology.

Enhanced Liquidity Opportunities

Moody’s Ratings, among other firms, closely monitors the emerging tokenisation sector. In an April 17 report, the agency highlighted the potential of tokenisation to enhance liquidity for traditionally illiquid investment assets such as real estate, venture capital, private equity, and art.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has described the tokenisation of all financial assets as the ultimate goal of digital asset technologies in financial markets.

Franklin Templeton is exploring additional functionalities for BENJI, according to Tibbitts.

The fund may introduce transferability for additional accounts and blockchain networks in the future, Tibbitts stated.

She also mentioned, There may be opportunities to create other tokenised financial products and features, including interoperability with other digital assets and blockchain-native facilities.