Bitcoin
Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson on Bitcoin ETFs, RWA Tokenization, and Blockchain’s Potential for TradFi
AUSTIN, TX – $1.6 trillion Silicon Valley-based asset manager Franklin Templeton has been at the forefront of traditional finance heavyweights entering the digital asset space.
“We look at blockchain technology [and found] This is going to be transformational and we better make sure we understand that,” said Jenny Johnson, president and CEO of Franklin Templeton, during a panel discussion Thursday at Consensus 2024 in Austin.
That’s why the company is running around 30 validator nodes on 12 different blockchains, for example on Ethereum (ETH)Cardano (ADA)Stellar (XLM) and Provenance, Johnson said on the panel. This is more than what the asset manager website shows, which mentions six networks, including the same four blockchains plus Polkadot (POINT) and Solana (SUN).
One of the main attractions of blockchain technology, she explained, is its efficiency in recording and reconciling transactions and its potential for cost savings.
“Franklin [Templeton] Today there are a large number of people, a few hundred, who only reconcile [data] between systems, so we have to reconcile with our counterparty and another company,” Johnson said.
Blockchains offer a single “source of truth” and time transactions better than conventional processes, she said, which could help cut costs and lessen administrative workload.
“We are in a business where we are constantly pressured to reduce the costs of delivering what we do,” she added.
An example of a benefit of blockchain is tokenization, making real-world assets such as funds and bonds available on digital asset rails. Franklin Templeton was a pioneer, she said, by launching the first on-chain money market fund using the Stellar network in 2021, years before rivals like BlackRock entered the market.
Franklin Templeton was one of 11 issuers approved to list spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. in January, and is also among those awaiting approval to launch a similar vehicle for the second-largest cryptocurrency, ether.
Johnson said many people are attracted to bitcoin (BTC) as an asset outside the banking system that is resistant to government seizure, but ETFs offer a well-understood vehicle to gain exposure.
“For me, it’s a vehicle of choice,” Johnson said. “An ETF is a regulated entity, which makes a lot of people more comfortable who otherwise wouldn’t have traded in this space.”