Franklin Templeton, a major traditional asset manager with roughly $1.7 trillion in assets under management, has partnered with Ondo Finance to launch tokenized versions of five of its ETFs. These tokenized products enable 24/7 trading directly through crypto wallets, bypassing traditional brokerage accounts and standard market hours.
Ondo Finance purchases shares of the underlying Franklin Templeton ETFs and holds them via a U.S.-registered broker-dealer. It then issues blockchain tokens through a special-purpose vehicle (SPV). Token holders receive the full economic exposure (price changes, dividends that reinvest automatically) but do not directly own the ETF shares. Tokens are backed 1:1 by the actual securities.
Trading benefits: 24/7 availability — Trade any time, including weekends. Near-instant settlement vs. traditional T+2. Tokens can potentially be used as collateral in DeFi, transferred peer-to-peer, or integrated with other on-chain protocols. Self-custody via crypto wallets.
The five ETFs being tokenized spanning U.S. equities, fixed income, and gold: Franklin Focused Growth ETF (FFOG). Franklin Responsibly Sourced Gold ETF (FGDL). Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF (FLHY). Franklin Income Equity Focus ETF (INCE). The initial rollout targets investors in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America.
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U.S. investors are currently excluded due to regulatory constraints around on-chain distribution of registered investment products by third parties. U.S. access would require further clarity from regulators. Ondo handles the tokenization and distribution via its Ondo Global Markets platform described as one of the largest tokenized securities platforms.
Franklin Templeton provides the underlying funds and supports education for crypto-native users. This fits into the accelerating real-world asset (RWA) tokenization trend, where traditional finance increasingly uses blockchain for efficiency, global access, and liquidity. Franklin Templeton has been active in crypto, and Ondo brings expertise with billions in tokenized assets and strong on-chain infrastructure.
It’s another step in bridging TradFi and crypto: similar to BlackRock’s tokenized funds or treasury products, but here focused on equity, gold and fixed-income ETFs with true 24/7 wallet-native trading. Ondo’s token ($ONDO) saw some short-term movement, but broader market context influences price action.
This represents meaningful progress toward more continuous, accessible, and programmable traditional investments—though it’s still early, with regulatory and adoption hurdles remaining, especially in the U.S. Real-World Asset tokenization is one of the fastest-growing segments at the intersection of TradFi and crypto.
It involves issuing blockchain tokens that represent ownership or economic exposure to traditional assets—like U.S. Treasuries, private credit, real estate, gold, equities, and more—while keeping the underlying assets backed 1:1 often via custodians or SPVs. This unlocks fractional ownership, 24/7 trading, instant settlement, global access via wallets, and DeFi composability.
The market has matured rapidly from niche experiments into a multi-billion-dollar sector with clear institutional momentum. Tokenized RWAs excluding or including stables depending on methodology now sit at $23–27 billion in on-chain/distributed value: RWA.xyz reports $26.60 billion distributed asset value +5.1% in the last 30 days and ~694,000 asset holders +6.3% in 30 days.
DefiLlama shows $22.95 billion on-chain market cap and $16.25 billion active market cap, with $1.6 billion in DeFi TVL tied to RWAs. Growth has been dramatic: 266% in 2025 alone, building on a 245x surge from 2020 levels. Projections point to $100 billion+ by the end of 2026, with longer-term estimates ranging from $2–16 trillion by 2030.
The market remains concentrated in yield-generating, low-risk assets that appeal to institutions: U.S. Treasuries; 40–50% dominance: Largest category, with ~$9+ billion tokenized. Top products include USYC ($2.4B), BlackRock’s BUIDL ($2.1–2.6B), USDY ($1.3B), BENJI/Franklin ($944M), and Ondo’s OUSG.
Commodities mainly gold: ~$5–7 billion, led by Tether Gold and PAX Gold. Gold accounts for the vast majority of tokenized commodities. Private Credit: Still massive; historically 50–60% in some snapshots, with platforms tokenizing loans, invoice finance, and structured credit.
2026 is transitioning from pilots to production-scale adoption. Focus is on liquidity, composability, and usability—tokens must be reliably priced, tradeable, and integrable as DeFi collateral. Products need credible legal wrappers (SPVs) while enabling secondary markets. RWAs are increasingly used on-chain for yield and as collateral in protocols like Aave Horizon or MakerDAO. This creates on-chain institutional yield rails.
The Franklin-Ondo launch you asked about earlier is a prime example of the next wave: equities and diversified ETFs going fully on-chain. If current momentum holds, RWAs could become a foundational layer of both DeFi and traditional markets, offering continuous global liquidity and programmable ownership at unprecedented scale. The runway is enormous—U.S. Treasuries alone are a $28 trillion market, and tokenized RWAs are still <0.1% penetrated.