Franklin Templeton and real-world asset tokenization firm Ondo Finance have announced a collaboration to offer tokenized versions of five Franklin Templeton exchange-traded funds. The partnership, revealed on Wednesday, aims to give users without traditional brokerage accounts access to these investment products. Trading will be available around the clock through digital wallets.
The five funds involved in the initiative include Franklin Templeton’s high-yield corporate ETF, its focused growth ETF, and its responsibly sourced gold ETF, among others. The tokenized offerings will be built on Ondo’s tokenized securities platform, Ondo Global Markets, which has accumulated more than $620 million in total value locked since launching last fall. The platform connects traditional investment products with blockchain-based financial ecosystems.
Franklin Templeton’s Head of Innovation, Sandy Kaul, described the collaboration as part of a broader shift in digital assets beyond cryptocurrency trading. She said the goal is to help users build an optimized financial life on-chain and bring new investment strategies to digital wallets. Kaul also noted that Franklin Templeton has delivered investment guidance to traditional finance clients for nearly 80 years.
Ondo Finance President Ian De Bode said Franklin Templeton was selected as a partner due to its institutional leadership in digital assets. He described the firm as a natural fit for bringing tokenized public equities and ETFs to wallet ecosystems on a global scale. The two companies also plan to develop educational programs showing how traditional investments can integrate with emerging financial ecosystems.
Access to the new tokenized ETF products is not available to users in the United States, who are ineligible to trade on the Ondo Global Markets platform. Ondo previously expanded access to more than 100 tokenized U.S. equities on the Ethereum blockchain in September, as broader interest in tokenized financial products continued to grow. The latest initiative builds on that momentum.
Franklin Templeton has a substantial history with tokenized assets, having launched its Franklin On-Chain U.S. Government Money Fund on the Stellar network in 2021. The fund was later expanded to Ethereum in 2024 and has since been made available on additional blockchains including Polygon, Aptos, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Solana, and Base. This track record positions the firm as an established player in the tokenized asset space.
The announcement arrives amid a broader wave of activity in securities tokenization. The New York Stock Exchange revealed a day earlier that it would collaborate with Securitize, which is backed by BlackRock, on the tokenization of securities. Additionally, Nasdaq received approval from the SEC last week to test tokenized versions of certain securities through a pilot program, signaling growing regulatory and institutional engagement with the sector.
Originally reported by Decrypt.
