Franklin Temp2026-10-08 06:34:52Franklin Templeton CEO says some tokenized funds are still just digital copies of traditional productsFranklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson used the TOKEN2049 stage to draw a sharp line between what she described as truly native tokenized funds and products that merely replicate existing financial infrastructure on-chain in appearance only. Speaking on Oct. 8, Johnson said many tokenized funds launched by competitors are little more than digital copies or digital twins of traditional financial products, rather than structures that capture blockchain’s advantages in efficiency and settlement. She contrasted those products with Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, which she said uses a native on-chain record model. In her description, ownership records for the fund are maintained directly on a public blockchain, making the blockchain itself the source of truth instead of a mirror of a traditional ledger. Johnson said that setup creates two practical benefits: yield can accrue by the second, allowing real-time yield calculation, and transaction costs are materially lower. She cited figures showing BENJI costs about $1.13 per transaction, compared with roughly $150 per transaction under traditional methods.30
Franklin Temp2026-10-08 06:07:54Franklin Templeton CEO says most tokenized funds are just digital copies of traditional productsFranklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said at TOKEN2049 in Singapore that many tokenized funds launched by rivals are little more than digital replicas of traditional financial products, rather than structures that make full use of blockchain-based efficiency and settlement. Johnson contrasted those offerings with Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, which she said records asset ownership directly on a public blockchain. According to Johnson, BENJI can calculate yield on a per-second basis, with a transaction cost of about $1.13 per trade, versus roughly $150 through traditional processes. She also said BENJI, launched in 2021, was the first registered mutual fund in the United States to use a public blockchain to record ownership. The remarks came as the broader tokenized money market fund segment has grown to an estimated $2.5 billion. At the same time, the report noted that Stellar, the public blockchain where BENJI was initially deployed, experienced a state archival bug in 2025 that led to anomalies in 478 on-chain data records.10
Franklin Temp2026-10-08 05:07:43Franklin Templeton CEO says many tokenized funds are still digital copies of traditional productsFranklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said at TOKEN2049 in Singapore that many tokenized funds launched by rival firms still amount to digital replicas of traditional financial products rather than structures that fully use blockchain’s efficiency. She pointed to the firm’s BENJI fund as an example of a different model, saying it records asset ownership directly on a public blockchain, supports yield that accrues by the second, and carries a transaction cost of about $1.13 per trade versus roughly $150 through traditional methods. BENJI was launched in 2021 and, according to the remarks cited in the report, was the first registered mutual fund in the United States to use a public blockchain to record ownership. The associated tokenized money market fund has reached an estimated total size of $2.5 billion. The report was published by Techub News and cited Wu Blockchain.30
Franklin Temp2026-06-03 07:26:10Franklin Templeton CEO: Wall Street Fears Blockchain Because It Threatens Its Fee-Based Business ModelFranklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson stated at the Proof of Talk summit in Paris that Wall Street's fear of blockchain stems from its potential to upend traditional finance's profit model, citing the cost savings achieved by the firm's tokenized money market fund Benji on the Stellar blockchain.440
