Franklin Templeton has integrated its BENJI tokenized money-market fund into MoonPay Trade, the companies announced Tuesday. Institutional users can now swap supported stablecoins directly into shares of the US government money fund — and back out — without ever leaving the blockchain.
How the integration works
Normally, buying into a traditional money-market fund means moving funds off-chain, waiting for settlement, and dealing with multiple intermediaries. This integration removes all that. An institutional trader on MoonPay Trade can exchange USDC or other supported stablecoins for BENJI tokens that represent shares in the fund. The reverse swap works the same way. The whole transaction happens on-chain, cutting out extra steps.
Why staying on-chain matters
For institutions that operate mostly in crypto, this is a big deal. They can park idle stablecoin holdings in a regulated government money-market fund — earning traditional yields — while keeping everything in their digital wallet. No need to wire money to a bank or wait days for settlement. That kind of efficiency is exactly what institutional crypto users have been asking for.
Targeting institutional demand
The service is explicitly aimed at institutional users, not retail. MoonPay Trade is the company's platform for large-volume trades, and Franklin Templeton's $1.5 trillion asset-management business brings credibility. The BENJI tokenized fund is registered with the SEC, so it's a regulated product — a plus for compliance-conscious buyers. The integration went live Tuesday, so no more months of waiting: users can access it now.
MoonPay Trade's expanding menu
MoonPay originally built its name on retail crypto on-ramps. But the company has been pushing deeper into institutional services over the past year. Adding a tokenized money-market fund from Franklin Templeton is a clear signal that it wants to be a one-stop shop for sophisticated traders. Whether other asset managers follow suit remains an open question — but the infrastructure is now in place.
