Franklin Templeton Investments is one of the oldest and largest independent asset management firms in the world. Rupert H. Johnson Sr. founded Franklin Distributors in New York in 1947, naming it after Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. The firm later acquired the Templeton Group – built by legendary investor Sir John Templeton – in 1992, forming Franklin Templeton Investments. Today the company is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and manages approximately $1.5 trillion in assets under management across equity, fixed income, multi-asset, and alternative strategies. It operates in more than 30 countries and serves institutional and retail clients worldwide.
Franklin Templeton entered the digital assets arena earlier than most traditional asset managers. The firm launched the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) in 2021 – one of the first tokenized money market funds registered with the SEC. The fund initially settled transactions on the Stellar blockchain and later expanded to Polygon, Arbitrum, Aptos, and Base, giving institutional investors on-chain exposure to short-duration U.S. government securities. In January 2024, the SEC approved the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (ticker: EZBC), adding a spot Bitcoin product to the firm's lineup. These moves cemented Franklin Templeton's position as one of the most active traditional finance participants in the tokenization space.
Notable investments
- Tokenized fund infrastructure – Franklin Templeton built proprietary on-chain infrastructure for FOBXX, deploying smart contracts across five public blockchains. This is a direct equity-style commitment rather than a third-party investment.
- Securitize – Franklin Templeton participated in a funding round for Securitize, a leading tokenization platform that enables compliant issuance of digital securities. Securitize has also served as transfer agent for FOBXX.
- Aptos ecosystem – The firm expanded FOBXX to the Aptos blockchain in 2024, signaling an investment in the network's institutional viability.
- Broader venture portfolio – Franklin Templeton's venture arm holds approximately 16 portfolio positions across blockchain infrastructure, DeFi protocols, and tokenization platforms. Specific company names beyond those disclosed publicly are not fully confirmed in public filings.
Public disclosure of individual venture positions is limited. The firm does not publish a comprehensive LP-style portfolio list, which is common among traditional asset managers moving into venture.
Team
Jenny Johnson serves as President and CEO, a role she has held since 2020. She is the granddaughter of founder Rupert H. Johnson Sr. and has been a primary advocate for the firm's digital asset strategy, speaking publicly at conferences including Davos and Money20/20 about tokenization and on-chain finance. Roger Bayston leads the firm's digital assets division as Head of Digital Assets, overseeing FOBXX and the broader blockchain product roadmap. The digital assets team sits within the broader Franklin Templeton investment organization and draws on the firm's fixed income and quantitative research capabilities. Deeper biographies of individual portfolio managers are available on the Franklin Templeton official site.
Recent activity
Since early 2024, Franklin Templeton has accelerated its on-chain product development. The approval of EZBC in January 2024 – alongside competitors BlackRock and Fidelity – marked a turning point for institutional Bitcoin adoption. The firm expanded FOBXX to Base (Coinbase's L2) and Arbitrum later that year, targeting DeFi-native institutions that want yield-bearing collateral on decentralized exchanges. In 2025, Franklin Templeton signaled interest in tokenized equity products and began engaging with regulators on broadening the scope of what assets could be represented on public blockchains. The firm also deepened partnerships with custody providers to meet institutional security standards for on-chain holdings. Their reported venture retail ROI of 1.84x reflects a cautious but positive early record across a portfolio that prioritizes infrastructure over speculative tokens.
Franklin Templeton's geographic focus remains global, with particular depth in North America and Europe where regulatory frameworks for tokenized securities are most developed. As one of the few firms combining a century-scale institutional brand with active on-chain product deployment, it occupies a unique position: a bridge between traditional asset management and the emerging on-chain economy. Whether its venture bets on blockchain infrastructure deliver outsized returns remains to be seen, but its operational commitment – running live tokenized funds on public networks – sets it apart from firms treating crypto as a purely speculative allocation. More detail on their digital assets strategy is available via Franklin Templeton Digital Assets and regulatory filings on
