Speaking at TOKEN2049 Singapore, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson blasted rival tokenized fund models, arguing that many are built merely as digital twins of old-school products instead of using blockchain tech as their core recordkeeping engine.
Reporting from the October 8 conference, Crypto Briefing noted that Johnson contrasted Franklin Templeton’s BENJI offerings against tokenized funds whose ownership records are kept in traditional databases while tokens merely mirror those holdings onchain. The official TOKEN2049 schedule shows Johnson shared a panel about tokenized assets, liquidity, and onchain settlement alongside Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng and Canton Network CEO Yuval Rooz.
Franklin Templeton has highlighted that very same difference in its internal research, defining a digital twin as a token tied to offchain ownership records where the asset is tracked primarily elsewhere. By contrast, the firm’s natively digital framework anchors official transaction and ownership data directly within a blockchain-integrated ledger.
Franklin Templeton Says BENJI Tracks Fund Ownership Records Onchain
According to Franklin Templeton, BENJI debuted back in 2021 via the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX). It was established as the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to leverage a public blockchain as its primary system for transaction processing and share ownership tracking, starting on Stellar before expanding to several other public networks.
This setup goes beyond merely exposing the entire shareholder list to public view, as an August 12 SEC staff letter outlines that Franklin Templeton Investor Services maintains an internal ledger housing private shareholder details alongside blockchain records holding anonymous transaction data. Both sets of data are linked instantly in real time to build the fund’s official shareholder register.
Administrative control over the system is retained by the transfer agent, which—as the SEC letter points out—can fix rogue transactions or mistakes, freeze or shift wallet entries, and roll back the official record whenever needed. As a result, blockchain data acts as a component of the official system while the registered transfer agent keeps a firm grip on the shareholder ledger.
Franklin Templeton’s current Benji platform is documented on its official site as running across Stellar, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Aptos, Ethereum, Base, Solana, and BNB Smart Chain, though retail availability differs from institutional access depending on the specific network.
Johnson’s BENJI Cost Comparison Needs a Closer Look
During her TOKEN2049 presentation, Johnson highlighted processing costs to support her argument, noting that initial conference figures put BENJI’s expenses at $1.13 per transaction versus about $150 for traditional methods, though a prior, more detailed statement from her is provided with a notably different comparison.
During Franklin Resources’ January 2026 earnings call, Johnson shared that the firm compared about 50,000 transactions processed through its legacy transfer agency system against those run on the Stellar blockchain. The call transcript shows that the old-school system was found to cost roughly $1.50 per transaction, whereas executing all 50,000 transactions on Stellar ran a total of approximately $1.13.
That earlier breakdown doesn’t back up a $150 legacy price tag per transaction, meaning that figure from TOKEN2049 should be viewed as an unconfirmed conference stat unless Franklin Templeton provides a separate math model or methodology to support it.
Franklin’s second-by-second yield claim is documented in separate company materials. Back in June 2025, the asset manager launched its Intraday Yield feature, explaining that the system calculates proportional payouts down to the second whenever a tokenized security changes hands between investors. After that, yield can be paid out daily on every single calendar day, covering both weekends and holidays.
BENJI Platform Assets Reach Roughly $2.6 Billion
Fresh onchain stats push Franklin Templeton’s tokenized operations past the $2.5 billion mark mentioned earlier in 2026. On October 8, RWA.xyz was tracking Franklin Templeton Benji Investments at roughly $2.60 billion in distributed asset value spread across four distinct products, and the platform was ranked second among tokenized U.S. Treasury fund providers by distributed value.
This metric should not be confused with the asset size of the standalone U.S. BENJI fund, as RWA.xyz priced BENJI alone at around $760.6 million while iBENJI made up roughly $1.71 billion. Meanwhile, Franklin Templeton’s traditional fund page listed FOBXX net assets at $686.64 million as of August 31, showing how different reporting dates and definitions for the broader platform can be mismatched to yield varying totals.
Franklin has integrated those tokenized shares directly into institutional trading setups. As previously highlighted, a BENJI collateral rollout on Bybit enables qualifying institutions to pledge fund shares while they unlock USDT or USDC trading credit lines. In a similar past agreement with Binance, eligible institutions are allowed to use Benji-issued money market fund shares as off-exchange collateral while the underlying assets sit securely within regulated custody.
The fund has secured another institutional gateway via MoonPay Trade. In related news coverage, detailed how BENJI was integrated into MoonPay’s institutional trading architecture, enabling qualified clients to seamlessly swap between supported stablecoins and Franklin Templeton tokenized money market fund exposure.
SEC Relief Broadens BENJI Use Across Franklin Funds
In August, a U.S. regulatory milestone was achieved that gave Franklin Templeton another pathway for deploying the onchain fund internally. SEC staff granted no-action relief regarding arrangements where affiliated Franklin funds are permitted to invest in BENJI while Franklin Templeton Investor Services serves as the custodian for those shares.
This relief is bound by strict controls covering authorization, separate blockchain wallets, daily reconciliation, recordkeeping, and independent accountant audits. The SEC stressed that the letter merely represents a staff enforcement position, carries no legal force, and is not classified as official Commission approval for the setup.
Beyond fund subscriptions and collateral, Franklin Templeton has utilized BENJI in other ways, noting when it announced the acquisition of crypto investment manager 250 Digital back in April that BENJI tokens would be used as part of the payment consideration. The firm wrapped up the buyout on June 22 and launched Franklin Crypto using the incoming investment team along with their liquid crypto strategies.
One specific claim tied to BENJI’s initial Stellar launch is examined separately, as the Stellar Development Foundation disclosed a network state-archival bug discovered in October 2025 that had corrupted 478 data entries. While most were fixed, 84 entries were left needing remediation by the impacted protocols or issuers, though SDF noted the issue was contained by October 10 and fully resolved by October 23.
The official post-mortem fails to identify Franklin Templeton or BENJI among the impacted entries, meaning the 478 corrupted records cannot be pinned directly on BENJI based on the available primary evidence. SDF stated that it responded by tightening up monitoring, validator coordination, testing, code review, and its collaboration with external security auditors.
