Franklin Templeton pitches BENJI as an onchain rate in Pendle discussion

Franklin Templeton wants its tokenized money market fund to be more than a parking spot for cash. In a discussion shared with Pendle on X, the firm described BENJI as a way for its Treasury money fund to serve as an onchain rate and collateral. What BENJI actually is Think of BENJI as a receipt that lives on a blockchain. Each token is equivalent to one share in Franklin Templeton’s money market funds, and the fund aims to hold a stable net asset value of $1.00. The flagship product behind it is the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund, which trades under the ticker FOBXX. Instead of a transfer agent keeping ownership records in a private database, the fund records them on public chains. The payoff is real-time tracking of who owns what, plus faster processing of transactions. Put simply, the shares themselves are the tokens. There is no wrapper sitting between the investor and the fund. The numbers behind the pitch The US version of BENJI launched on the Stellar network in April 2021. Since then, it has reportedly grown to hold between $667 million and $687 million in onchain assets as of late 2026. Stellar was only the starting line. Franklin Templeton has since expanded the...