In a move that blends the world of traditional finance with cutting-edge blockchain technology, Franklin Templeton, a global asset manager with a cool $1.5 trillion in assets under management, has just revealed its plans to launch a mutual fund natively on the Solana (SOL) blockchain during the Solana Breakpoint 2024 event in Singapore.
And, yes, you read that right—a mutual fund on Solana.
Mike Reed, the guy leading Partnership Development at Franklin Templeton, took the stage at the event on September 20 to break down what could be a game-changer for both finance and crypto. In his keynote, Reed highlighted why blockchain is more than just hype for financial services—it’s a way to actually make things run more smoothly and cost-effectively.
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“Our idea was to, you know, try and find operational efficiencies in our overall business by using blockchain technology,” Reed explained.
Franklin Templeton didn’t pick just any fund—they’re launching a money market fund. Why? Because money funds are deeply tied to the transactional economy, with check-writing and debit card features making them a perfect match for blockchain’s efficiency. Reed knew this was a smart play, especially when you need something with a high transaction volume to make blockchain truly sing.
He put it plainly: “We thought if we wanted to try and use the blockchain efficiently, we want to have as many ledger entries as we possibly could.”
Franklin Templeton builds its own infrastructure
Franklin Templeton went one step further and built their own infrastructure from the ground up. Reed proudly shared:
“Rather than do this in kind of an inauthentic way by hiring an outside vendor to do the tokenization for us, we decided to build our own development team.”
They created a digital wallet infrastructure and an on-chain transfer agent, setting the stage for the mutual fund to operate natively on blockchain rails.
The true mic-drop moment came when Reed announced they had officially filed to build on Solana, saying the firm mints tokens “authentically on chain” without relying on an off-chain book of records.
“The record of ownership is the token itself. You own that token in your wallet, and that’s your authentic record of ownership,” Reed said, giving the crowd a peek into the future of finance.
Franklin Templeton’s leap into blockchain isn’t limited to this fund either. Earlier in 2024, they launched Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, joining the likes of BlackRock and Grayscale. And while a spot Solana ETF isn’t on the table just yet, you can bet it’s on their radar.
Meanwhile, over in the payments world, PayPal’s José Fernández stirred the pot by pointing out that Ethereum isn’t exactly the best solution for payments. Fernández did state that SOL with its token extensions, low fees, and lightning-fast processing of 1,000 transactions per second—make it a top contender for mainstream adoption.
As of now, Solana is trading at $150.64, an 8.35% jump in the last day, adding over $5 billion to its market cap—soaring from $65.08 billion to $70.84 billion.
Notably, the token’s surge marks the highest gains among the top 10 crypto assets by market cap, likely influenced by the recent announcements at Solana Breakpoint 2024
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