Franklin Templeton Upgrades Two Money Market Funds, Advances Blockchain and Stablecoin Adoption

BlockBeats News, January 14th, Franklin Templeton announced updates to two of its institutional money market funds, making them available for the emerging tokenized finance and regulated stablecoin markets.

This adjustment involves funds managed by its affiliate Western Asset Management, aiming to help institutional clients use familiar cash management tools on blockchain platforms and stablecoin reserve frameworks.

Specifically, the Western Asset Institutional Treasury Obligations Fund has adjusted its investment structure to comply with the U.S. GENIUS Act's stablecoin reserve asset requirements, currently holding only U.S. Treasury bills with maturities of no more than 93 days, eligible as reserve assets for compliant stablecoins.

Another fund, the Western Asset Institutional Treasury Reserves Fund, has introduced a new digital institutional share class, allowing approved intermediaries to record and transfer fund share ownership via blockchain infrastructure.

Franklin Templeton stated that this move is designed to help institutional investors gradually adopt on-chain infrastructure without introducing entirely new crypto-native products. This development also echoes recent actions by major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase in launching tokenized money market products on Ethereum.