Franklin Templeton brings $410M Treasury fund to Coinbase’s layer-2 Base

Franklin Templeton has introduced its tokenized fund to Coinbase’s Base, L2 Ethereum network, reportedly becoming the first asset manager to join the Ethereum scaling solution.

The wealth manager announced that its OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX) has launched on its crypto exchange’s layer-2 network. 

Franklin Templeton’s investment application, Benji, is live on Coinbase’s L2 platform

In an X post on Thursday, Franklin Templeton revealed that its blockchain recordkeeping system, Benji, is available on Coinbase’s layer 2 Base. This comes after the asset manager said it launched its OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX) on the exchange’s L2 Ethereum network. Investors can now buy shares of FOBXX and hold them in digital wallets through the Benji Investments mobile app.

Anthony Bassili, head of tokenization at Coinbase, commented on the asset manager’s move:

This is the first large asset manager to  directly launch on Base, a clear signal to investors and issuers of what’s to come.

~Anthony Bassili

So far, the L2 network Base has already gained traction among crypto enthusiasts, with the number of transactions rising 55% quarter-over-quarter, as revealed in the exchange’s Q3 earnings report. Coinbase even shared that the platform has helped to build its name and position in on-chain activity. 

According to L2Beat data, the L2 also holds over $8 billion in total value locked (TVL), surpassing multiple competitors.

The tokenized fund launched its services on other blockchain networks

The tokenized fund FOBXX already has over $410 million in assets and has launched on five other blockchain networks: Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos, and Stellar.

At the start of October, Aptos’ L1 blockchain welcomed Franklin Templeton’s tokenized fund. The asset manager claimed they chose the network because it met suitability requirements for its Benji platform.

Before joining Aptos, Franklin Templeton introduced its fund on the Avalanche network. Roger Bayston, head of Franklin Templeton’s digital assets, commented then that the Avalanche ecosystem reflected a super robust network that would allow them to offer high-quality attributes to their customers. 

Morgan Krupetsky, Head of Capital Markets and Institutions at Ava Labs, also expressed his excitement about working with the asset manager.

Templeton’s FOBXX primarily runs on the Stellar network, while fund investors can also utilize Polygon and Arbitrum to trade their shares.