As early as May 2022, Roger Bayston, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton, stated: “Companies are waiting for the right time to offer cryptocurrency-related ETFs. Franklin Templeton is monitoring regulations regarding ETFs and considering Provide clients with blockchain investment strategies.”

A year and a half later, on September 12, financial giant asset management firm Franklin Templeton, which manages more than $1.4 trillion in assets on behalf of clients, has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a Bitcoin exchange. Application for exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

According to the filing, the ETF will be named the Franklin Bitcoin ETF, with custody entrusted to Coinbase Custody Trust Company. If approved, the ETF would trade on the Cboe BZX exchange and use the CME’s Bitcoin Price Reference Index to determine its value. This spot ETF application melee has ushered in another strong participant.

Overview of Trillion Giants


Franklin Templeton Group is a global asset management company headquartered in Philadelphia, USA. Founded in New York by Mr. Rupert Johnson in 1947, it is one of the oldest asset management companies in the United States. It was once the world's largest listed fund company and is currently one of the largest fund investors in Asia. Currently, Franklin Templeton manages more than US$1.4 trillion in assets, has more than 9,500 employees worldwide, and provides services to investors in more than 170 countries around the world.
The company also has Dr. Mark Mobius, known as the godfather of emerging markets, as a manager of emerging market investments. In 1996, he was ranked among the top ten fund managers in the world by the New York Times along with Buffett and Peter Lynch. ".

Franklin Templeton’s Path to Blockchain Investment

Franklin Templeton has been involved in the blockchain field since at least mid-2019, having participated in crypto custody company Curv’s $23 million Series A round and blockchain analytics startup Amberdata’s $15 million Series A round.

Franklin Templeton launched two blockchain venture capital funds on 2021-09-15 and 2023-5-23 respectively: Franklin Templeton Blockchain Fund I and II.

Earlier in 2022, head of digital assets Roger Bayston called digital assets "leading-edge risk alternatives" and said that the crypto products it offers "could take a variety of forms" in the future depending on the evolution of the regulatory environment. Subsequently, Franklin Templeton announced the launch of the Metaverse ETF "Franklin Metaverse UCITS ETF" for European investors. The ETF will track the Solactive Global Metaverse Innovation Net Total Return Index, which focuses on blockchain applications. Metaverse-related companies including payment company Block, crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, and gaming company Electronic Arts.

The ETF will be listed on Deutsche Börse Xetra (XETRA) on September 7, 2022 local time, and on Borsa Italiana and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on September 9, 2022.

RWA market giant



This is not the first time Franklin Templeton has invested in the virtual currency market. The concept of RWA (real world assets-tokenization) has been mentioned repeatedly this year. In fact, the tokenized U.S. Treasury bond market accounts for $603 million of the market, and the largest giant is traditional finance’s Franklin Templeton Fund Group. Franklin's well-known Onchain U.S. Government Currency Fund (FOBXX) was established on April 6, 2021, and is mainly issued on the Stellar public blockchain. The Fund invests 99.5% of its total assets in U.S. Government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements that are fully collateralized by U.S. Government securities or cash. With total assets of nearly $295.55 Million at the end of August, in April this year it expanded to Polygon, and now it says it may also issue tokens on the Avalanche and Aptos blockchains, as well as the Arbitrum sidechain linked to Ethereum. To give investors a better experience, Franklin Templeton has been offering fee-related discounts to make tokenized funds more attractive. Without subsidies, it would charge a fee of 0.89%, and it currently limits fees to 0.2%. The fund's annualized return in the past year was 3.75%.

Hidden Star VC

Franklin Templeton has also invested in many well-known blockchain projects, such as Move Gemini Sui, Aptos, and Xverse. The investment field covers a wide range of areas, including wallets, lending, public chains, NFT, RWA and other star projects in multiple tracks.


Bitcoin Spot ETF Outlook

Unfortunately, since the application for spot ETF is not new to the market, the market response yesterday was relatively dull. However, every application is a strong support for the adoption of the Bitcoin ETF.
The picture below is relevant information provided by Bloomberg. The next reply date we face will be in mid-October. Another delay may be a high probability. Maybe there will be a surprise?​