Franklin Templeton issued tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds on the Arbitrum blockchain. The initiative marks a significant step in integrating traditional (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s largest asset management companies, partnered with the Arbitrum Foundation. As reported by The Block, the collaboration aims to launch the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) based on the Arbitrum L2 protocol within the Ethereum ecosystem.
FOBXX, established in 2021, is represented by the BENJI token and was previously launched on the Stellar and Polygon blockchains. Investors can mint tokens through the Benji Investments platform, which is now also integrated with the Arbitrum blockchain. According to the company, investors can use the network upon request and subject to regulatory compliance.
As of July 2024, FOBXX has net assets of approximately $400 million and an annual yield of around 5.25%.
According to DeFiLlama, Arbitrum is the largest L2 network in the Ethereum ecosystem, with the total value locked (TVL) of $2.7 billion, representing nearly 34% of the entire L2 market. The network also leads in the number of daily unique active wallets (dUAW).
The initiative is part of Franklin Templeton’s strategy to expand access to RWAs. The company plans to integrate with other blockchain networks and provide access to tokenized assets for user-managed wallets.
The market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries surpassed $1 billion for the first time in 2024, with analysts predicting market growth to $3 billion by the end of this year. Tokenized U.S. T-bills were also recently launched on Ripple’s XRP Ledger (XRPL) blockchain.
