Pomegra
Franklin Templeton links its Benji platform with MoonPay Trade, channeling stablecoin capital into regulated BENJI money market fund shares across 200-plus chains.
- Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund held $1.98 billion in AUM as of April 2026, with its investor base up more than 140% over two years.
- MoonPay Trade, launched May 21, 2026, gives institutions a single route into tokenized assets, stablecoin liquidity, and DeFi protocols across 200-plus blockchains.
- Tokenized real-world assets surpassed $33 billion globally in 2026, tripling year-on-year; BCG projects the sector reaches $18.9 trillion by 2033.
Lead
Franklin Templeton has integrated its Benji Technology Platform with MoonPay Trade, enabling eligible institutional investors to convert supported stablecoins directly into shares of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund — the first U.S.-registered tokenized money market fund — as the firm accelerates its Templeton tokenization strategy. The BENJI token recorded $1.98 billion in assets under management as of April 29, 2026, making it the largest regulated tokenized fund of its kind.What Happened
The integration connects MoonPay Trade — launched May 21, 2026 — to the Benji Technology Platform, creating a direct subscription pathway between stablecoin wallets and regulated money market funds governed by U.S. securities law. Institutions holding stablecoins that seek yield without sacrificing round-the-clock liquidity can move capital into BENJI shares through blockchain-based workflows without exiting the MoonPay environment.
MoonPay Trade offers banks, fintechs, and enterprises access to tokenized assets and DeFi protocols across more than 200 blockchains and protocols. The platform supports collateral transfers and lending integrations with protocols including Morpho, Aave, and Maple Finance. Its infrastructure is built on Decent.xyz, the cross-chain startup MoonPay acquired in an eight-figure transaction earlier this year, alongside DFlow, a Solana trading-infrastructure provider that processed more than $12 billion in volume during the first quarter of 2026. Caroline Pham, former acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, now heads MoonPay's institutional business.
Strategic Context
Franklin Templeton's commitment to Templeton tokenization predates most institutional peers. BENJI launched in 2021 as the world's first U.S.-registered mutual fund to record share ownership and process transactions entirely on a public blockchain. In the five years since, the fund's investor count has grown more than 140% from April 2024 to March 2026, and cumulative peer-to-peer transfer volume surpassed $211 million as of March 31, 2026. BENJI operates across eight networks — Ethereum, Solana, Base, Stellar, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Aptos — providing multi-chain distribution that few asset managers have matched.
Beyond the MoonPay integration, Franklin Templeton has restructured two of its institutional money market funds to comply with the GENIUS Act — the stablecoin reserve framework enacted in 2025 — by restricting holdings to U.S. Treasuries maturing within 93 days. That modification qualifies those vehicles as eligible backing assets for regulated stablecoin issuers, positioning them to capture capital inflows as the stablecoin market scales under the new regulatory standard.
The firm's tokenization push has also drawn partnerships with Payward, parent company of Kraken, which integrated BENJI across its institutional platform; and with Binance, through a tokenized fund collateral program announced in April 2026. Payward and Franklin Templeton are jointly developing actively managed funds delivered on-chain, extending the product range beyond government securities.
Market Backdrop
The MoonPay and Franklin Templeton integration arrives as the tokenized real-world asset market surpasses $33 billion in total value — triple its level from one year earlier. Boston Consulting Group projects that figure could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033 as institutional infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and settlement efficiency converge. Sandy Kaul, Franklin Templeton's head of innovation and digital assets, has characterized 2026 as "the year of the universal liquidity layer," a stage at which stablecoins, tokenized money market funds, and digital payments become interoperable across trading, lending, and collateral markets.
Outlook
BENJI enters the second half of 2026 with a near-$2 billion asset base, widened institutional distribution through MoonPay Trade, and an eight-chain infrastructure spanning the principal settlement networks used by digital-asset institutions. As GENIUS Act implementation proceeds and stablecoin issuers seek eligible reserve assets, demand for regulated tokenized money market funds is poised to accelerate. Franklin Templeton's concurrent expansion into actively managed on-chain products through its Payward partnership signals a broader product roadmap, with Templeton tokenization extending well beyond government securities into yield-generating strategies for institutional digital-asset allocators.
Mentioned tickers: BEN
