Franklin Templeton and MoonPay announced a strategic partnership that brings the Benji tokenized platform onto MoonPay Trade’s institutional trading infrastructure. The integration allows eligible institutional users to move seamlessly between stablecoins and tokenized money market fund exposure through a fully onchain execution process, marking a step toward merging traditional yield products with crypto-native settlement layers.
Tokenized Treasury Market Surpasses $5 Billion
Tokenized treasury and money market products have become the fastest-growing segment within the real-world asset (RWA) space. Over the past two years, institutions have flocked to blockchain-native low-risk yield products, pushing the estimated market size above $5 billion. Unlike stablecoins, which mainly serve as transactional liquidity tools, tokenized money market funds let investors hold yield-bearing treasury exposure directly onchain — a distinction that is becoming increasingly critical for institutional capital markets.
Franklin Templeton’s Blockchain Journey: From 2018 to 2026
Franklin Templeton has steadily expanded its blockchain and tokenization efforts since 2018. The Benji platform now stands as one of the most prominent examples of a traditional asset manager building tokenized fund infrastructure. Key milestones include: expanding blockchain investment initiatives in 2018; launching the first U.S. blockchain mutual fund; introducing the first fully tokenized UCITS fund in Luxembourg in 2024; a retail tokenized fund in Singapore in 2025; and the planned use of BENJI in an M&A transaction in 2026. The firm increasingly positions BENJI as programmable financial infrastructure rather than a standalone investment product.
Stablecoins and Treasury Products Begin to Converge
Historically, institutions used stablecoins for settlement and liquidity while relying on traditional instruments for yield. Tokenized money market funds now combine both: institutions can hold treasury exposure onchain while retaining interoperability with broader digital asset infrastructure. The Franklin Templeton-MoonPay integration leverages MoonPay Trade’s quote, routing and execution infrastructure to bridge stablecoin liquidity pools and tokenized fund exposure.
MoonPay Evolves From Crypto On-Ramp to Institutional Finance Layer
MoonPay started as a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp provider and is now pivoting toward institutional onchain financial infrastructure. Its evolution spans three phases: early focus on crypto purchases and fiat on-ramps; expansion into stablecoin infrastructure; and current direction toward institutional onchain finance. Adding BENJI to MoonPay Trade marks the company’s first move beyond crypto, fiat and stablecoins into tokenized financial products, reflecting a broader industry trend where infrastructure providers target treasury management and capital market workflows over retail speculation.
Institutional Demand for Onchain Treasury Tools Surges
Driven by needs in liquidity management, treasury yield, collateral efficiency, portfolio rebalancing and cross-border operations, institutions are rapidly adopting tokenized treasury products. Franklin Templeton specifically cited liquidity management, portfolio rebalancing and collateral-adjacent use cases in the MoonPay integration, which increasingly resemble traditional treasury operations rather than crypto trading.
Competitive Landscape Heats Up
Franklin Templeton is not alone. In the past year, BlackRock launched BUIDL, Ondo Finance introduced OUSG, Superstate issued tokenized treasury funds, and Securitize provided tokenization infrastructure. Traditional asset managers, crypto-native firms and fintech providers are converging on the same opportunity, making tokenized treasury one of the most competitive segments in digital asset infrastructure.
Tokenized Funds Become Onchain Infrastructure
Originally viewed as blockchain versions of traditional investment vehicles, tokenized funds are evolving into programmable infrastructure layers within the onchain financial system. Institutions can now move between stablecoins, tokenized treasury exposure and broader liquidity workflows without leaving blockchain-native settlement environments. The line between payments, treasury management and tokenized investment products is blurring — and the Franklin Templeton-MoonPay partnership signals this convergence is accelerating.