Put the Money Fund on the Blockchain

Uh … so … Franklin Templeton Investments … is … launching a stablecoin? Here’s the preliminary prospectus. If I were designing a stablecoin for Franklin Templeton, I would call it the “Benjamin,” but they went in a different direction. They are calling it the Franklin Blockchain Enabled U.S. Government Money Fund, which is not a name that is going to draw in a lot of crypto enthusiasts, or enthusiasts of any kind really. It is a government money-market fund, though, which means that it should have a stable value: It will invest “at least 99.5% of its total assets in Government securities, cash and repurchase agreements collateralized fully by Government securities or cash.” So if you put in a dollar, it will be worth a dollar, and maybe you’ll get a tiny bit of interest on it.

So far that describes a money-market fund, not a stablecoin. But this is not like other money-market funds in one key way. You can probably guess what it is. The word “blockchain” is in the name. It is a money-market fund on the blockchain. Well, sort of. It’s a little bit on the blockchain. It’s this much on the blockchain: