Franklin Templeton, the $1.6 trillion asset manager, announced on April 1, 2026 the acquisition of 250 Digital — a CoinFund Management spinoff — and the simultaneous launch of a dedicated crypto division called Franklin Crypto. The new unit consolidates 250 Digital's liquid cryptocurrency strateg...
"Together, their investment talent and differentiated strategies strengthen our capabilities in digital assets and position us among a small group of global asset managers with a dedicated, institutional-grade crypto investment management team." — Jenny Johnson, CEO, Franklin Templeton
Franklin Templeton, the $1.6 trillion asset manager, announced on April 1, 2026 the acquisition of 250 Digital — a CoinFund Management spinoff — and the simultaneous launch of a dedicated crypto division called Franklin Crypto. The new unit consolidates 250 Digital's liquid cryptocurrency strategies under former CoinFund executives Christopher Perkins and Seth Ginns, alongside Franklin Templeton veteran Tony Pecore. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2026.
The transaction has two notable structural features. First, it creates one of the few dedicated, named crypto investment units inside a top-20 global asset manager, designed to serve pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Second, part of the acquisition consideration will be paid in BENJI tokens — shares of Franklin Templeton's on-chain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) — marking what appears to be the first use of tokenized fund shares to settle an M&A transaction. The move places Franklin Templeton alongside BlackRock, Fidelity, and Invesco in an accelerating race to build institutional-grade crypto platforms that go beyond passive ETF wrappers.
Franklin Templeton is acquiring 250 Digital's investment team and all liquid cryptocurrency strategies previously managed by CoinFund Management LLC. The acquisition creates a new unit — Franklin Crypto — that will report to Sandy Kaul, Franklin Templeton's head of innovation.
The leadership appointments are as follows:
Perkins brings a traditional finance background prior to CoinFund. He previously served as Global Co-Head of Futures, Clearing & FX Prime Brokerage at Citigroup. In a January 2026 forecast, Perkins stated that 2026 would be "the year of crypto M&A," projecting total deal value would reach $25 billion, up from roughly $8.6 billion in reported crypto-native M&A in 2025, according to Bloomberg data.
250 Digital emerged in early 2026 when CoinFund spun out its liquid strategies business to sharpen its focus on venture investing. The spinoff separated CoinFund's liquid token trading operations — including liquid token markets, venture exposure, and structured products tied to blockchain infrastructure — into a standalone entity.
The acquisition is subject to the execution of definitive transaction agreements, client consents, and other customary closing conditions. No purchase price was disclosed.
Part of the acquisition consideration will be paid using BENJI tokens, which represent shares of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX). This is significant for several reasons.
FOBXX, incepted in 2021, was the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its system of record for processing transactions and recording share ownership. As of late 2025, the fund held approximately $742 million in AUM and had distributed $51 million in dividends. The fund is deployed across at least eight blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Base, Stellar, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Aptos, with additional deployments on BNB Chain and Canton Network.
Using BENJI tokens as partial M&A consideration represents a practical test case for tokenized fund shares as a settlement mechanism in corporate transactions. If the structure holds through regulatory and legal review, it establishes a template for future deals where tokenized assets serve as consideration — not merely as collateral or investment instruments, but as direct payment in acquisitions.
The precedent matters because it demonstrates the closing of a loop: Franklin Templeton issues a tokenized fund, that fund's tokens are accepted as payment by a counterparty in an arm's-length transaction, and the resulting entity is absorbed into the issuing firm's organizational structure. This is distinct from using stablecoins or native crypto tokens in M&A — it involves a regulated, yield-bearing, SEC-registered fund instrument.
Franklin Templeton Digital Assets managed approximately $1.8 billion in global assets as of December 31, 2025, according to the company's press release. The unit employs more than 50 dedicated personnel across strategy, research, and product design.
The firm's existing crypto product lineup includes:
| Product | Type | |---------|------| | Franklin Bitcoin ETF | Spot ETF | | Franklin Ethereum ETF | Spot ETF | | Franklin Solana ETF | Spot ETF | | Franklin Crypto Index ETF | Multi-asset (XRP, SOL, DOGE, ADA, XLM, LINK) | | FOBXX (BENJI) | Tokenized money market fund |
In September 2025, Franklin Templeton signed a memorandum of understanding with DBS Bank and Ripple to launch trading and lending solutions powered by tokenized money market funds and Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin. Under this arrangement, DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx) lists sgBENJI — a tokenized version of a Franklin Templeton money market fund — alongside RLUSD, enabling DBS clients to trade between the two instruments with settlement completing within minutes. A subsequent phase will allow clients to use sgBENJI tokens as collateral for repo transactions.
The addition of Franklin Crypto extends the firm from passive products (ETFs and tokenized funds) into active crypto portfolio management — a higher-margin, higher-complexity business targeting pensions and sovereign wealth funds.
Franklin Templeton's move occurs within a broader pattern of major asset managers building dedicated crypto infrastructure:
BlackRock ($11.5 trillion AUM) operates the BUIDL tokenized fund, the largest tokenized RWA product globally with approximately $2.5 billion in AUM as of mid-2025. The firm posted a job listing for a Head of Digital Asset Strategy in early 2026, signaling expanded organizational commitment. Its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) anchors the $123 billion Bitcoin ETF market.
Invesco ($2.2 trillion AUM) announced on March 24, 2026 that it would take over management of Superstate's $900 million–$967 million tokenized U.S. Treasury fund (USTB), entering the tokenized treasuries market and utilizing Superstate's digital transfer agent infrastructure. The fund will be renamed Invesco Short Duration US Government Securities Fund upon completion in Q2 2026.
Fidelity has built digital asset teams focused on custody, research, and long-term asset servicing through Fidelity Digital Assets. The firm operates spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs and has expanded infrastructure hiring.
The combined tokenized fund market has grown from $8.6 billion in AUM by mid-2025 to approximately $14.4 billion at recent count, according to industry data. The concentration among a handful of issuers — BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, and a few others — mirrors the consolidation dynamics of the traditional ETF market.
What distinguishes Franklin Templeton's approach is the explicit creation of an active management division branded as a crypto unit. While peers have added crypto capabilities across existing structures, Franklin Crypto is a named, separately led division with its own CIO, targeting a product set (liquid token strategies, structured products) that goes beyond index-tracking.
The 250 Digital spinoff and sale represents CoinFund's decision to narrow its focus to venture capital. By separating liquid strategies into a standalone entity and selling it to a $1.6 trillion asset manager, CoinFund effectively exits the liquid token trading business while monetizing the team and strategies it built.
This follows a pattern seen across crypto-native firms in 2025–2026: as institutional players enter with scale advantages in trading infrastructure, compliance, and distribution, crypto-native liquid funds face a choice between competing on an increasingly expensive playing field or merging with larger platforms. Paradigm, Polychain, and other crypto-native firms have similarly adjusted their scope, with several narrowing toward early-stage venture where crypto-native expertise carries more differentiated value.
Perkins and Ginns effectively move from a $300–$500 million crypto-native liquid fund platform to a $1.6 trillion distribution machine with 50+ existing digital asset staff, multiple ETFs, and a tokenized fund with $742 million in AUM across eight-plus blockchains. The trade-off: operational independence for institutional scale.
The Franklin Templeton deal occurs against a backdrop of surging crypto M&A. According to DL News, publicly disclosed crypto M&A surged more than sevenfold in 2025 to approximately $37 billion in total deal value, setting an all-time record for the sector. Q1 2026 has accelerated the pace, with 17 crypto-related acquisitions in January alone.
The largest recent deal: Mastercard's March 17, 2026 agreement to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for up to $1.8 billion (including $300 million in contingent payments), eclipsing Stripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge in February 2025. According to Fortune, the BVNK deal is the largest stablecoin acquisition to date.
The buyer profile is shifting. Traditional financial institutions — not crypto-native firms — are driving the largest transactions. Mastercard (payments), Invesco (asset management), and now Franklin Templeton (asset management) join a list that includes ICE's reported $600 million Polymarket raise and Coatue's $1 billion Kalshi Series E in Q1 2026, per fundraising data.
This pattern is consistent with a market entering a consolidation phase where distribution, compliance infrastructure, and balance sheet scale matter more than first-mover advantage in product development.
Franklin Templeton ($1.6T AUM) creates Franklin Crypto, a dedicated active crypto investment division, via acquisition of CoinFund spinoff 250 Digital. The deal is expected to close Q2 2026; financial terms undisclosed.
BENJI tokens used as partial M&A consideration — the first known instance of tokenized, SEC-registered fund shares being used to settle a corporate acquisition. This tests whether tokenized instruments can function as deal currency, not just investment vehicles.
Franklin Templeton Digital Assets managed $1.8B as of December 2025, with 50+ staff, four crypto ETFs, and the FOBXX tokenized fund deployed across 8+ blockchains with $742M AUM.
The competitive landscape is consolidating rapidly. BlackRock (BUIDL, $2.5B AUM), Invesco (Superstate USTB, ~$967M), and Fidelity are all building parallel crypto infrastructure. The tokenized fund market has reached approximately $14.4B.
Crypto M&A hit $37B in 2025 and is accelerating in 2026, with traditional finance buyers — not crypto-native firms — driving the largest transactions, including Mastercard's $1.8B BVNK acquisition.
CoinFund exits liquid strategies to focus on venture capital, following a sector-wide pattern of crypto-native firms ceding liquid market operations to institutional-scale competitors.
The Franklin Crypto launch marks a structural shift in how asset managers approach digital assets. The industry has moved from cautious ETF offerings — designed to let clients access crypto without touching it — to dedicated, branded divisions with their own leadership, CIOs, and active management mandates. The BENJI token payment mechanism, if it survives regulatory scrutiny through closing, adds a second dimension: tokenized fund shares functioning as corporate transaction currency.
The economics are straightforward. Active management commands higher fees than passive ETF wrappers. Institutional clients — pensions, sovereign wealth funds, endowments — require dedicated coverage teams, bespoke portfolio construction, and compliance infrastructure that passive products do not. Franklin Templeton is buying that capability rather than building it from scratch, a calculus that favors speed in a market where BlackRock, Fidelity, and Invesco are all expanding simultaneously.
Whether Franklin Crypto can generate returns that justify its institutional-grade cost structure remains an open question. Crypto liquid markets are efficient enough that active management alpha is not guaranteed, particularly net of the compliance and operational overhead that a $1.6 trillion parent firm imposes. The DBS/Ripple partnership and multi-chain BENJI deployment suggest the firm is also betting on distribution channel innovation — meeting institutional clients where they already trade — rather than relying solely on investment performance.
The deal's significance may ultimately lie less in its investment merits than in its structural features. A top-20 asset manager paying for an acquisition partly in its own tokenized fund tokens, while creating a named crypto division targeting sovereign wealth capital, is a data point about where the industry's center of gravity is moving.