At the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson criticized many competing tokenized funds, labeling them as mere digital copies of traditional financial products. She argued that these offerings fail to utilize the inherent efficiencies of blockchain technology.
Johnson highlighted the BENJI fund as a native blockchain product where the ledger serves as the primary source of truth. The fund, which launched in 2021 as the first US-registered mutual fund using a public blockchain for ownership records, supports real-time yield accrual.
The company reported a transaction cost of $1.13 for BENJI, significantly lower than the approximately $150 required for traditional methods. The product is now used as off-exchange collateral on platforms such as Bybit and Binance.
The total value of Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money funds is estimated at $2.5 billion, a portion of the firm's total assets under management of approximately $1.8 trillion. The BENJI fund's value fluctuated between hundreds of millions and over $800 million in 2026.
In April 2026, Franklin Templeton utilized BENJI tokens as part of the payment to acquire the crypto investment team 250 Digital from CoinFund. Johnson categorized the current market into two camps: natively built blockchain products and those that simply wrap existing systems in tokens.
