Blockchains Threaten Wall Street’s Fee Machine, Not Its Technology

Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson has a straightforward explanation for why major financial institutions have been slow to embrace public blockchains: the technology destroys their fee-based revenue streams.

Speaking at the Proof of Talk summit in Paris, Johnson — who oversees $1.74 trillion in assets at Franklin Templeton — told a panel audience that the resistance from traditional financial players is not about technology skepticism.

It is about protecting the business model. Banks and intermediaries that collect transaction fees at every step of the settlement process stand to lose that income the moment a smart contract can handle the same function at a fraction of the cost.

Johnson pointed to Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market fund, Benji, as a concrete demonstration of the cost differential. Running 50,000 transactions through the firm’s legacy system cost $1.30 per transaction. The same volume processed on the Stellar blockchain came in at $1.13 per transaction — a meaningful reduction at institutional scale.

The announcement came as Franklin Templeton disclosed a new partnership with MoonPay, designed to let institutional investors move between stablecoins and the firm’s tokenized fund through an on-chain workflow.Franklin Templeton’s push into digital assets is one of the most aggressive moves by a legacy asset manager in the industry’s history. The California-based firm, which manages roughly $1.74 trillion in assets, began building its dedicated digital assets team in 2018 — years before tokenization became a mainstream focus among institutional players.

Franklin Templeton’s bitcoin and crypto push

Benji launched in 2021 as the world’s first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its official system of record for processing transactions and recording share ownership. The fund invests predominantly in U.S. Treasury securities and uses blockchain strictly for operational efficiency rather than crypto exposure. 

On the bitcoin front, Franklin Templeton launched the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (ticker: EZBC), a passive product that holds only bitcoin and cash, designed for investors seeking direct price exposure without managing custody. 

The firm also offers a dynamic bitcoin/ethereum separately managed account product for investors wanting active allocation between the two largest digital assets.

In April 2026, Franklin Templeton announced plans to acquire 250 Digital, a spinoff from crypto venture firm CoinFund, forming a new division called Franklin Crypto to pursue active cryptocurrency investment strategies at institutional scale. 

The deal itself broke new ground — BENJI tokens were used as part of the acquisition payment, making it one of the first M&A transactions structured on-chain. The firm’s digital assets division manages approximately $1.8 billion in assets.