HashKey Exchange to Offer Franklin Templeton's Tokenized Treasury Fund to Asian Investors

HashKey Exchange will begin offering Franklin Templeton's tokenized U.S. government money market fund to eligible investors in Asia starting August 24, the two companies said in a joint announcement. The fund, branded grBENJI, will list on HashKey Exchange's Earn channel, giving the Hong Kong-listed platform's users access to a product that invests primarily in U.S. government money market instruments and U.S. dollar cash assets through blockchain-based infrastructure.

The product is restricted to professional investors and will not be offered to the public in Hong Kong. HashKey Exchange holds Type 1 and Type 7 licenses from Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission, covering dealing in securities and providing automated trading services, along with an anti-money-laundering license, and does not serve users in mainland China, the United States or certain other jurisdictions.

"Partnering with a global asset management leader like Franklin Templeton marks a monumental milestone for HashKey Exchange and the broader Asian digital asset landscape," said Haiyang Ru, CEO of HashKey Exchange BG. "By bringing the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Liquidity Fund onto our Earn channel, we are directly addressing the surging institutional demand for compliant, real-world asset yield solutions."

Chetan Karkhanis, Franklin Templeton's senior vice president of digital assets client engagement, said the launch gives the asset manager access to "their rapidly expanding client base of digital-native banking and wealth platforms alongside established institutional clients." He added that the companies plan to expand beyond tokenized money market funds into other tokenized products over time, leveraging HashKey's presence across Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai and Bermuda.

The deal extends the reach of BENJI, Franklin Templeton's tokenization platform, which already operates across several blockchains including Stellar, Polygon, Avalanche and BNB Chain. Franklin Templeton manages $1.80 trillion in assets as of July 31, 2026, and operates in more than 35 countries.

Tokenized Treasury funds have become one of the more established corners of the real-world asset market, led by BlackRock's BUIDL, which is tokenized by Securitize and has grown past $2 billion in assets. Franklin Templeton's move to distribute grBENJI through an Asian exchange rather than only through its own platform points to a distribution strategy built on partnering with regional venues that already hold retail and institutional relationships, rather than competing for that access directly.

For HashKey, the tie-up adds a recognizable asset manager's name to its Earn product lineup at a moment when exchanges across Asia are competing to offer regulated yield products backed by real-world assets rather than crypto-native yield. Whether the partnership expands into other tokenized products, as both companies say they intend, will be the more meaningful test of how far this collaboration goes beyond a single fund listing.