CEO Franklin Templeton says that Bitcoin investment is still in its infancy

Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson believes that we are still in the early days of the Bitcoin (BTC) investment cycle and that large institutional funds are not yet fully deployed in the asset class.

“This is really the first wave of early adopters, and I think the next wave will be very large institutions,” Johnson told CNBC in a recent interview.

The CEO noted that institutional demand will continue to grow as previously risk-averse investors and fund managers become more comfortable handling digital assets and their underlying technologies.

Johnson is an outspoken believer in blockchain innovation. The CEO of the $1.6 trillion asset management firm already believes that all exchange-traded funds and mutual funds will one day reside on the blockchain.

Johnson cited data processing costs and new use cases as the main drivers behind her support of blockchain technologies and digital assets.

Johnson said her company has experimented with traditional data processing systems on blockchain data systems. Her team was “surprised” by the significant cost reductions in using blockchain systems to transfer data.

Novel use cases for digital assets are also on Johnson's radar. “B-tch Better Have My Money” highlights Rihanna's use of Invincible Tokens (NFTs) to tokenize her song royalty rights and transfer those rights to NFTs holders.

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Such use cases have prompted Johnson to describe tokenization as “hedging on steroids,” noting that power digital assets should unlock previously inaccessible liquidity and value hidden in hard assets and digital property rights.

Such technologies will increase access to non-monetary assets such as aggregators, membership of various organizations through NFTs and other tokens and subscriptions – potentially creating new asset classes and markets altogether.

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