Franklin Templeton

Franklin Templeton is a global investment management firm founded in 1947 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, with approximately $1.6 trillion in assets under management. While the firm's core business spans equities, fixed income, and multi-asset strategies across traditional markets, its digital assets division has positioned it as one of the most active institutional participants in blockchain-based finance — particularly through its tokenized money market fund and a growing suite of crypto exchange-traded products.

The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX)

FOBXX is the defining product of Franklin Templeton's blockchain strategy. Launched on April 6, 2021, it was the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its official system of record for share ownership. Franklin Templeton had been developing the underlying Benji technology platform since 2017, four years before the fund debuted.

The fund invests at least 99.5% of its assets in U.S. government securities, cash, and fully collateralized repurchase agreements. It maintains a stable $1.00 net asset value and distributes yield to shareholders daily. As of April 2026, the 7-day effective yield stood at 3.58%.

As of March 31, 2026, FOBXX held approximately $844 million in total net assets, making it the third-largest tokenized money market fund globally, behind BlackRock's BUIDL and Ondo Finance's combined OUSG and USDY products.

The BENJI Token

Each share of FOBXX is represented by one BENJI token. When investors subscribe to the fund, new BENJI tokens are minted on the relevant blockchain network and linked to regulated fund records maintained by the transfer agent. Yield is distributed daily through newly minted BENJI tokens airdropped directly to shareholder wallets, so investors accumulate additional tokens over time rather than receiving cash dividends.

Token transfers are permissioned — only wallets that have completed KYC/AML verification can receive BENJI. Peer-to-peer transfers between whitelisted wallets became available on April 25, 2024. This structure gives BENJI characteristics similar to a yield-bearing stablecoin while remaining a regulated SEC-registered mutual fund share under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Rule 2a-7.

The Benji Platform

Investor access to FOBXX is managed through the Benji platform, which Franklin Templeton describes as the world's first U.S.-registered money market fund available on-chain. The platform encompasses a digital asset transfer agent, a management system for digital assets, and wallet infrastructure for investors. It is accessible via a mobile app and web interface.

Retail availability on Benji is currently limited to the Stellar network. Institutional investors can access FOBXX on eight networks: Stellar, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Aptos, Ethereum, Base, and Solana. All transaction records and share ownership are executed and stored directly on these public blockchains, with Stellar serving as the primary network since the 2021 launch.

Solana Integration

Franklin Templeton added Solana as its eighth supported blockchain on February 12, 2025, expanding FOBXX's multi-chain footprint. The Solana deployment carried a $100 minimum investment — one of the lowest access thresholds across all supported networks — making it accessible to retail-scale participants as well as institutions.

In its announcement, Franklin Templeton cited Solana's speed, security, and censorship-resistant infrastructure as reasons for the addition, noting the network's "growing RWA ecosystem" as a strategic fit. The expansion came ahead of rival BlackRock, whose BUIDL fund had not yet launched on Solana at the time.

Holders on Solana and holders on Stellar own shares in the same FOBXX pool, earn the same daily yield, and have identical redemption rights — the multi-chain architecture does not create separate share classes.

Franklin Solana ETF (SOEZ)

Beyond FOBXX, Franklin Templeton launched a spot Solana ETF under the ticker SOEZ, which began trading on NYSE Arca on December 3, 2025. SOEZ is structured as a staking-eligible grantor trust with a 0.19% annual fee. It seeks to track the price of SOL while passing staking rewards through to investors — with up to 100% of the fund's Solana intended to be staked at any given time. SOEZ is the seventh U.S.-listed Solana-focused fund and forms part of Franklin Templeton's broader digital asset ETP suite, which also includes spot ETFs for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP.

Roger Bayston, Franklin Templeton's Head of Digital Assets, has framed the firm's Solana positioning around networks that demonstrate "real-world adoption." The Solana ETF filing and launch followed the FOBXX Solana deployment by approximately ten months.

Blockchain Deployment Timeline

Franklin Templeton has expanded FOBXX to eight networks over four years:

• Stellar — April 2021 (launch)
• Polygon — 2023
• Avalanche, Aptos, Arbitrum, Base — 2024
• Ethereum — November 2024
• Solana — February 12, 2025
• BNB Smart Chain — added subsequently (institutional)

Institutional Use Cases

BENJI tokens serve functions beyond simple yield accrual. In February 2026, Franklin Templeton partnered with Binance to allow institutional traders to post BENJI tokens as derivatives margin collateral, enabling yield to accrue on capital that would otherwise sit idle. The passage of the U.S. GENIUS Act in July 2025 opened a further avenue: regulated stablecoin issuers may back dollar-pegged tokens with tokenized money market fund shares, a category FOBXX is positioned to fill.

On permissioned DeFi protocols, whitelisted BENJI tokens function as collateral. Franklin Templeton also operates its own blockchain validators to support network infrastructure across the chains it uses.

Team and Background

Franklin Templeton's digital assets division is led by Roger Bayston as Head of Digital Assets, with Sandy Kaul serving as Head of Innovation. The firm's entry into blockchain-based finance predates most institutional peers — the Benji technology platform was in development by 2017, and FOBXX's 2021 launch gave the company a roughly two-year head start over BlackRock's BUIDL, which launched in 2023.

Regulatory Standing

FOBXX operates as an SEC-registered mutual fund under the Investment Company Act of 1940. It is open to investors of all sizes on lower-minimum networks such as Solana, with no accredited-investor requirement, provided KYC/AML verification is completed. Franklin Templeton has also secured regulatory approvals in Luxembourg (CSSF, October 2024), Hong Kong (SFC, 2025), and Singapore (in partnership with DBS Bank and Ripple), making FOBXX one of the most broadly licensed tokenized funds globally.