Franklin Templeton Stumbles Down the Crypto Rabbit Hole, Eyes Onchain M&A Settlement

Franklin Templeton is going deeper down the crypto rabbit hole. The asset management giant has launched Franklin Crypto, a dedicated institutional-grade crypto investment management platform, according to its official X account. Because apparently sitting on the sidelines while Bitcoin broke six figures wasn't exciting enough.

The new unit will co-lead ex-CoinFund officials Chris Perkins and Seth Ginns, alongside Anthony Pecore, Senior Vice President and Director of Digital Asset Management for Franklin Templeton. The firm also plans to acquire 250 Digital and its liquid cryptocurrency strategies managed by CoinFund. Think of it as assembling the Avengers, but for your boring uncle's retirement fund.

CEO Jenny Johnson said the combined investment talent strengthens their digital asset capabilities and positions them among a select group of global asset managers. You know, the ones who haven't gotten regulatory wrist slaps yet.

The interesting part: Franklin Templeton plans to use tokenized registered securities for settlement instead of traditional systems. This brings them closer to conducting M&A transactions onchain. Because if there's one thing legacy finance needs, it's more ways to move money without calling your broker.

BENJI tokens will help bridge traditional and digital asset classes. Yes, that's actually the token name. No, we're not making this up.

Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President's Council on Digital Assets, commented: "Expect to see a lot more headlines like this as digital assets are brought into the regulatory fold. CLARITY would supercharge this." Nothing says "we're totally serious about crypto" like referencing pending legislation that might never pass.

Polymarket odds sit at 65% for the CLARITY Act's passage before its April deadline. The crypto prediction markets are basically just vibes at this point.

The deal is expected to close by Q2 2026. Franklin Resources stock traded at $23.59 at press time, down 1.65% in pre-market. The market's response: a shrug emoji.

This follows Franklin Templeton's recent partnership with Ondo Finance to launch tokenized ETFs for real-world assets. Because when everyone else is minting NFTs of jpegs, the real money is in tokenizing parking garages.