At TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson criticized competitors' tokenized fund models, calling many of them digital replicas of traditional products rather than systems with blockchain as the primary accounting layer. According to her, the BENJI platform has an advantage: it uses blockchain for ownership accounting. Johnson spoke on a panel with Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng and Canton Network CEO Yuval Rooz.
BENJI was launched in 2021 through FOBXX, the first U.S.-registered mutual fund using a public blockchain as the official accounting system. The product started on Stellar and then expanded to Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Aptos, Ethereum, Base, Solana, and BNB Smart Chain. An SEC staff letter dated August 12 shows that Franklin Templeton Investor Services maintains an internal system with private shareholder information alongside anonymous blockchain records, and the transfer agent retains control and can correct errors and freeze records.
Expense comparison requires clarification. At TOKEN2049, $1.13 was mentioned versus $150 for traditional processing. However, on a Franklin Resources call in January 2026, Johnson spoke about 50,000 transactions: traditionally around $1.50 per transaction, while all 50,000 on Stellar cost approximately $1.13 in total. Thus, the $150 figure remains unverified. The Intraday Yield function, since June 2025, calculates yield to the second and distributes it daily, including weekends.
RWA xyz on October 8, 2026, values the platform at $2.60 billion in distributed value across four products, with BENJI around $760.6 million and iBENJI around $1.71 billion. As of August 31, 2026, FOBXX had $686.64 million in net assets. BENJI is used as collateral on Bybit, Binance, and through MoonPay Trade. In August, the SEC granted no-action relief for investments by affiliated funds. When acquiring 250 Digital in April 2026, BENJI became part of the payment, with the deal closing on June 22. A Stellar archiving bug in October 2025 damaged 478 records, but Franklin Templeton and BENJI were not mentioned in the post-mortem.
This material is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation.