Franklin Templeton, Ondo Finance Bring 24/7 Tokenized ETF Trading to Crypto Users

In brief

• Franklin Templeton and Ondo Finance are teaming up to tokenize five of the financial giant’s ETFs.
• Offerings include Franklin Templeton’s responsibly sourced gold ETF and its high-yield corporate ETF.
• The tokenized ETFs will be offered via Ondo’s Global Markets platform, which is unavailable to U.S. users.

Global asset manager Franklin Templeton and real-world asset tokenization firm Ondo Finance are teaming up to offer tokenized versions of five Franklin Templeton exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as part of a new initiative, the firms announced on Wednesday.  The funds—which include Franklin Templeton’s high-yield corporate ETF, its focused growth ETF, and its responsibly sourced gold ETF—will allow those without traditional brokerage accounts to gain access and trade them around the clock.  “The next phase of digital assets isn’t just about trading crypto, but building your optimized financial life on-chain, and we’re excited to combine efforts with Ondo to accelerate toward this next era of investing” said Franklin Templeton Head of Innovation Sandy Kaul, in a statement.

“As digital-native audiences mature and their needs evolve, we’ll be ready to bring new innovative strategies to digital wallets alongside the trusted investment advice that Franklin Templeton has delivered to TradFi clients for nearly 80 years,” she added.   The firms will also work together on educational programs designed to showcase how traditional investments will fit in alongside “emerging financial ecosystems.”  The new tokenized ETF offerings will use Ondo’s tokenized securities platform, Ondo Global Markets, which has established more than $620 million in total value locked (TVL) since its launch last fall.

“We’re excited to have selected Franklin Templeton to bring new investment products on-chain through Ondo Global Markets,” said Ondo Finance President Ian De Bode, in a statement. "Franklin Templeton’s institutional leadership in digital assets makes them a natural fit as we bring tokenized public equities and ETFs to wallet ecosystems globally.” However, access to the products is not intended for U.S. users, who are ineligible to make trades on Ondo’s Global Markets platform. Ondo rolled out access to more than 100 tokenized U.S. equities on the Ethereum blockchain in September as interest around tokenized equities and products rose.  Franklin Templeton also has a long history with tokenized assets, debuting its Franklin On-Chain U.S. Government Money Fund on the Stellar network in 2021 before expanding the offering to Ethereum in 2024. It has also since expanded to Polygon, Aptos, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Solana, and Base. The pair’s latest tokenization initiative comes a day after the New York Stock Exchange announced it will collaborate with the BlackRock-backed Securitize for the tokenization of securities. Also, last week, Nasdaq earned SEC approval to test tokenized versions of some securities in a pilot program.