Franklin Templeton Brings $594M Fund to Solana Blockchain

Franklin Templeton, a prominent global investment management firm, has expanded its OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, known as FOBXX, to the Solana blockchain. This move, announced on February 12, 2025, allows investors to access the $594 million money market fund using the Benji Investments mobile app, which serves as a digital wallet.

The fund, which was first launched in 2021, provides investors with exposure to U.S. government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements. Its BENJI token, which is issued as a digital asset, closely resembles a yield-bearing stablecoin and maintains a share price of $1.

Franklin Templeton's expansion to Solana is a strategic move to tap into the growing market for crypto-based products. The firm faces stiff competition from BlackRock, which launched its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, or BUIDL, on Ethereum last spring. BUIDL's market cap has since swelled to $637 million, surpassing BENJI's total value.

However, Franklin Templeton's decision to issue BENJI on Solana places the product within one of crypto's most vibrant ecosystems for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Solana's total value locked (TVL) has grown to $9 billion, making it the second most valuable DeFi ecosystem behind Ethereum's $56 billion landscape.

Tokenization, the process of converting real-world assets into digital tokens, is seen as the "next evolution of markets" by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. This technology enables near-instantaneous settlement and reduced fees. While still in its infancy, the tokenization sector is projected to grow to as much as $30 trillion by 2034, according to British bank Standard Chartered.

In November, BlackRock expanded BUIDL's footprint to five new blockchains, issuing shares on Aptos, Avalanche, and the Ethereum scaling networks Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. In response, BENJI expanded to Ethereum last year, as well as Aptos, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and the Coinbase-launched Ethereum scaling network Base.