At the Proof of Talk summit in Paris, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said blockchain threatens traditional finance fee income, while the firm expanded its tokenization push with MoonPay and highlighted its broader digital-asset strategy.
Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said blockchain threatens traditional finance business models and bank fee income, helping explain Wall Street’s resistance to the technology. Speaking at the Proof of Talk summit in Paris, she pointed to Franklin Templeton’s Benji tokenized money market fund on Stellar, where 50,000 transactions cost $1.13 each compared with $1.30 per transaction under legacy systems. Franklin Templeton also disclosed a partnership with MoonPay aimed at letting institutional investors move between stablecoins and the firm’s tokenized fund through an on-chain workflow. The asset manager said Benji launched in 2021 as the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its system of record, and highlighted a wider digital-assets push that includes its Franklin Bitcoin ETF, a bitcoin/ethereum separately managed account product, and an April 2026 plan to acquire 250 Digital and form Franklin Crypto.