Franklin Templeton Brings Tokenized US Money Market Fund to Asia via HashKey

Franklin Templeton, a $1.80 trillion asset manager, has partnered with Hong Kong-based HashKey Exchange to distribute its tokenized money market fund, grBENJI, to professional investors across Asia through HashKey's Earn channel.

The fund invests primarily in short-term U.S. government securities and repurchase agreements, giving investors on-chain exposure to one of the most liquid, low-risk asset classes in traditional finance. The initial rollout targets professional investors in Hong Kong, where HashKey holds regulatory authorization, before broader regional expansion.

For Franklin Templeton, this is geographic diversification of a product line it has been building for several years. The firm launched its Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOHF) on Polygon in 2023, making it one of the first major institutional players to put a money market fund on a public blockchain. That fund quietly became a benchmark for the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) category, which has since grown into a multi-billion dollar segment of DeFi. The Asia push with HashKey is the next logical step: the product is proven, the demand signal from institutional crypto desks in the region is clear, and HashKey brings the licensing infrastructure to make distribution compliant.

HashKey's role here matters more than it might appear. Regulatory standing in Hong Kong is not easy to obtain, and HashKey is one of a small number of exchanges licensed under the city's virtual asset trading platform framework. That license gives Franklin Templeton a credible distribution rail into a market where, without the right local partner, a foreign asset manager's tokenized product would face significant legal friction. The partnership effectively converts HashKey's regulatory capital into Franklin Templeton's distribution advantage.

The broader RWA tokenization market has been accelerating sharply. On-chain data aggregators tracking tokenized Treasuries have recorded total assets in the category crossing $5 billion earlier this year, with BlackRock's BUIDL fund and Franklin Templeton's own FOHF among the largest positions. Asian institutional appetite for U.S. rate exposure without the friction of traditional brokerage accounts has been a consistent demand driver, particularly as dollar-denominated yields remain attractive relative to local alternatives in several regional markets.

Geopolitical friction between the U.S. and parts of Asia creates background noise around any product backed by U.S. government securities, even if the credit risk is negligible. Competition is intensifying: traditional banks in Hong Kong have been piloting their own tokenized deposit products, and several other asset managers are building out RWA distribution in the region. While professional investor appetite is genuine, the tokenized fund category still lacks the deep liquidity and secondary market infrastructure that would make it truly competitive with money market funds accessed through conventional prime brokerage.

Franklin Templeton is planting a flag in Asia while the regulatory window in Hong Kong is open and HashKey has the distribution relationships to actually move product. Whether grBENJI scales into a meaningful AUM contributor depends on how quickly the professional investor base in the region gets comfortable holding yield-bearing positions in tokenized form rather than through traditional channels. The infrastructure is there. The question is adoption velocity.