Franklin Templeton's BENJI, the first U.S.-registered money market fund on a public blockchain, has grown to $654M AUM on Stellar five years after launch. The fund leverages Stellar's native issuer controls for SEC compliance, enabling continuous yield accrual, low fees, and peer-to-peer share transfers.
Franklin Templeton launched BENJI (Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund) on Stellar in April 2021, becoming the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its official system of record. The fund uses Stellar's native Asset model for protocol-level issuer controls, enabling authorization, clawback, and holder management directly on the ledger without custom smart contracts. BENJI's architecture supports continuous yield accrual, a 0.15% management fee among the lowest for tokenized money market funds, and 5-7 second settlement. Over five years, BENJI has expanded to $654M AUM on Stellar, launched international share classes (gBENJI, sgBENJI, grBENJI), integrated with Zero Hash for institutional USDC subscriptions, and pioneered peer-to-peer share transferability for retail holders, accumulating $211M in P2P transfer volume.
