<\/p>\n
The asset management firm\u2019s $380 million OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund commands nearly a third of the tokenized Treasuries sector.<\/p>\n
Franklin Templeton, the asset management behemoth with over $1.4 trillion in AUM, has launched peer-to-peer transfers for its OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (BENJI), enabling investors in the fund to transfer their shares to each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually, we hope for assets built on blockchain rails to work seamlessly with the rest of the digital asset ecosystem,\u201d said Roger Bayston, Head of Digital Assets at Franklin Templeton, in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n Launched in 2021, BENJI was the first U.S. mutual fund to use a public blockchain \u2013 Stellar \u2013 to record transactions and track ownership. Each BENJI token represents a share in the liquid fund, which trades on the Nasdaq exchange under the FOBXX<\/a> ticker and invests in short-term government securities that currently offer a 5% yield, roughly.<\/p>\n \u201cAllowing fund shares to be transferred peer-to-peer puts Franklin Templeton on the cutting edge of the financial sector where tokenized real-world assets are an industry staple and more open, transparent, and accessible,\u201d Stellar Development Foundation Chief Business Officer Jason Chlipala told The Defiant via email.<\/p>\n With a market capitalization of $380 million, BENJI leads the tokenized Treasuries sector, but the ongoing real-world asset (RWA) boom has seen it lose some market share to newer competitors like Blackrock\u2019s BUIDL<\/a>, which has amassed over $300 million of assets since launching on Ethereum just over a month ago. BUIDL cannot be transferred among holders.<\/p>\n Investors can access the fund through Franklin Templeton\u2019s Benji<\/a> digital assets platform, which requires users to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) formalities.<\/p>\n