‘You can see the demand for Bitcoin there’: Franklin Templeton CEO

Despite calling bitcoin the biggest distraction from blockchain—which she describes as one of the biggest disruptions in financial services—Franklin Templeton President and CEO Jenny Johnson says she's still on board.

“A lot of people have taken that because I'm not a Bitcoin believer,” Johnson told CNBC. “And yet, launching this ETF, you can clearly see the interest in Bitcoin, and I think there are many reasons why.”

For example, she pointed out that the ability to pay for things with bitcoin is increasing.

“[Blockchain] Technology opens up very exciting investment opportunities, Johnson said.

Calling Bitcoin just one of the set of investment opportunities, Johnson Franklin Templeton investment firm launched in 2021 which created a tokenized fund on the stellar blockchain, Franklin Templeton said in a filing with the SEC 20 million dollars. For blockchain venture funds.

In the year Founded in 1947, Franklin Templeton is an international investment firm that provides asset management and financial support services to individuals and institutions. The company currently has more than 1.4 trillion dollars under management.

Earlier this year, Franklin Templeton said that the Nasdaq-listed OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX) would make the ethereum matching network Polygon “more compatible with the rest of the digital ecosystem.”

However, Franklin Templeton's involvement in blockchain dates back to 2015. It will be back in 2019.

Echoing recent comments from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Johnson said the continued interest in Bitcoin is a hedge against oppressive governments, adding that when she travels around the world, she hears stories of people holding 50% of their savings in Bitcoin. Fear of having their fiat money confiscated for saying the wrong thing.

“There's an element of fear,” Johnson said. “[Bitcoin] It is considered as an insurance or security element. But I also think it's really important to ignite the next real opportunity in the blockchain world.

Johnson said Bitcoin ETFs are attractive to investors because they don't need to manage private keys, which are technically complex to manage and directly access the investor's bitcoin holdings.

“It's very complicated. I did it at one point, and I've been trying to figure out how to get back in, and it's hard,” Johnson said. “So it's a much better way to unlock it and be able to access that through an ETF and simply access it through your brokerage account.”

Johnson emphasizes the firm's expertise in active investment strategies in various forms, including mutual funds and ETFs.

“You're seeing more actively managed ETFs, and that's where the focus is,” Johnson said.

Last week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved several Bitcoin ETFs, including applications by Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, Grayscale and VanEck.

On Wednesday, Franklin Templeton's Twitter account hinted at the company's future plans for Ethereum and Solana.

“On Solana, we see Anatolian's vision of a single atomic state machine as a powerful use of decentralized blockchains and information asymmetry,” he said. “Despite the recent mid-life crisis, we see a bright future with plenty of strong tailwinds to push the Ethereum ecosystem forward,” the label said.

A spokesperson for Franklin Templeton declined to comment on the company's future offerings, but told Decrypt that the company is constantly monitoring developments in digital assets.

“We cannot comment on potential future fund offerings, but we can say that we are continuously monitoring developments in the digital asset and ETF ecosystems,” the spokesperson said.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.