Franklin Templeton, the asset manager overseeing roughly $1.74 trillion, has teamed up with crypto onramp provider Moonpay to let institutions trade stablecoins directly for tokenized money market fund shares onchain. The deal links Franklin's proprietary Benji Technology Platform — a blockchain-enabled recordkeeping system — with Moonpay Trade's institutional infrastructure.
What the integration does
The setup is straightforward: eligible institutions using Moonpay Trade can now exchange stablecoins for exposure to tokenized money market funds managed by Franklin Templeton. No offchain bridging or manual settlement layers are required. The transaction happens onchain, with Benji's distributed ledger handling the recordkeeping while Moonpay's backend provides the trade execution and custody rails.
In practice, this means a fund manager sitting on a pile of USDC could swap into a tokenized Treasury fund without leaving the crypto ecosystem. Franklin Templeton's Benji platform has been live for years, but this is the first time it's directly plugged into a major crypto trading infrastructure provider.
Tokenized money market funds have been one of the few crypto use cases gaining real traction with wirehouse money. Franklin Templeton is the biggest traditional asset manager to push its own blockchain-native fund, and hooking it into an exchange-style venue like Moonpay Trade removes a friction point that kept some institutions on the sidelines.
The timing isn't accidental. With yield on traditional money market funds hovering above 5%, and stablecoin holders looking for yield without leaving crypto rails, products like this fill a gap. Franklin brings balance sheet credibility; Moonpay brings the distribution and compliance gatekeeping.
Inside the deal
The partnership doesn't require Moonpay to hold the funds or Franklin to run an exchange. Benji stays the single source of truth for share ownership and redemption. Moonpay Trade checks eligibility, handles the stablecoin leg, and routes the order to Benji's smart contracts. The two systems speak to each other via API — no shared ledgers or capital pooling.
For Moonpay, which started as a consumer onramp and later launched Moonpay Trade for institutions, this is a signal that they're serious about the asset management side of the business. For Franklin, it's a distribution win that puts its onchain fund in front of active crypto traders without those traders having to leave their existing workflow.
Neither company has disclosed a timeline for expanding to retail or adding more fund types. What's clear is that the onchain money market fund channel just got a direct pipeline from the stablecoin economy.
