Kraken parent teams with Franklin Templeton to bring managed funds Onchain

The payment joins Franklin Templeton in expanding real-world property tokenization

The partnership combines Franklin Templeton's approximately $1.74 trillion in assets under management with Payward's xStocks tokenized equities framework, which processes more than $30 billion. Transaction volume From 2025 onwards.

At the center of the deal is a plan to directly build actively managed investment products. blockchain Networks allow professionally managed strategies to be programmed and traded onchain from one major traditional asset manager.

The two companies will jointly design token products aimed at first institutional clients and, when regulations allow, Kraken's broader user base. The products are designed to emphasize transparency, programmability and flexibility.

Kraken integrates Franklin Templeton's BENJI token suite into its institutional services platform. BENJI Tokens represent shares in Franklin OnChain's US government funds and related vehicles and can be used as bonds or to produce products in digital markets.

Arjun Sethi, CEO of Payward and Kraken, said the collaboration represents a fundamental change in how financial products are structured. “Such collaboration opens up a whole new product class that wasn't possible even three years ago: assets that carry decades of managerial loyalty and programmatic digital infrastructure,” Sethi said.

Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton, said the focus is on making onchain assets work for the full range of market participants.

Kaul explained.

“Our work with Payward, expanding the BENJI service and exploring new tokenized products, reflects the growing need to serve both digital-native and institutional clients with solutions built around how capital moves on-chain.”

Franklin Templeton followed. blockchain In 2018, he merged and launched FOBXX, the first US-registered mutual fund to publicly register mutual ownership. blockchainin April 2021. The fund now operates across Stellar; SolanaBase, Polygon, Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and other networks.

In the year In March 2026, Franklin Templeton partnered with Ondo Finance to launch its five ETFs for onchain distribution and afternoon trading. Crypto Wallets. The next month, the company launched Franklin Crypto Unit 250 Digital, a CoinFund spinoff, completed part of that transaction using BENJI tokens.

Payward's xStocks framework offers 1:1 representation of US stocks and ETFs, enabling extended trading hours and DeFi consolidation, including lending and decentralized exchange trading. The company announced that it has partnered with Nasdaq to develop special equity token designs that will support automated corporate actions, proxy voting and dividends by 2026.

The collaboration highlights a broader industry move toward real-world asset simulation. Traditional assets gain blockchain-native benefits, including 24/7 availability and integration of decentralized financial protocols, while onchain infrastructure gains regulated, institutional-grade products.

The risks identified in the announcement include regulatory uncertainty, blockchain security vulnerabilities, pricing and settlement accuracy and operational conditions. Tokenized products are issued and distributed by Payward; Franklin Templeton manages the underlying strategies but does not provide or support token platforms. The announcement states that availability varies by jurisdiction.

Both organizations participate in DTCC tokenization working groups, and the partnership puts them at the forefront of accelerating institutional interest in traditional finance and crypto-native infrastructure.