Investors may now use USDC to fund their accounts to purchase shares in the first and only U.S.-registered mutual fund to process transactions and record ownership on a public blockchain

Franklin Templeton announces that users on the Benji Investments platform can convert USDC stablecoin to U.S. dollars (“USD”) to fund their investment in shares of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) (the “Fund”). One share of the Fund is represented by one “BENJI token.”

USDC to USD conversion services are provided by Zero Hash, a crypto and stablecoin infrastructure platform that supports over 60 digital assets across a multitude of blockchains. Zero Hash conversion services allow investors to convert USDC to USD, which in turn is transferred to their Franklin Templeton account and used to seamlessly purchase BENJI tokens. Investors in the Fund may also use Zero Hash services to convert USD proceeds from the sale of BENJI tokens to USDC.

The feature will be immediately available to certain institutional wallets on the Benji Investments platform and shareholders of the Fund may initiate conversions at any time. USDC conversion services for individual investors using the Benji Investments mobile app may be enabled in the future.

“By offering an on-ramp to buy BENJI tokens with USDC we provide a seamless method for investors to access our tokenized money market fund, which is a registered fund that provides the price stability characteristics of a stablecoin while also accruing yield,” said Roger Bayston, Head of Digital Assets at Franklin Templeton. “This is an exciting step in our continued journey to make the digital assets ecosystem more accessible to both traditional and blockchain-native investors. We are also building the framework for BENJI tokens to be interoperable with additional tokens in the not-too-distant future.”

The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund was launched in 2021 and is the first and only U.S.-registered fund to use a public blockchain as the system of record to process transactions and record share ownership. The Fund offers a competitive yield and is a regulated 1940 Act fund that invests at least 99.5 percent of its total assets in government securities, cash and repurchase agreements collateralized fully by government securities or cash. The Fund’s investment objective is to provide investors with as high a level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of shareholders’ capital and liquidity and aims to maintain a stable $1.00 share price. In April 2024, Franklin Templeton announced that institutional BENJI token holders now have the ability to transfer shares from one shareholder to another shareholder (“peer-to-peer”) on the public blockchain.

Individual investors can gain exposure to the Fund in digital wallets through the Benji Investments app, available in mobile app stores for Android and Apple devices. Institutional investors can gain exposure through the Benji Institutional web portal.

Source: Franklin Templeton