Franklin Templeton launches Franklin Crypto, acquires 250 Digital – Details

Franklin Templeton has moved beyond passive exposure to digital assets and is now expanding deeper into active crypto management.

On Monday, the 22nd of June, the $1.78 trillion asset manager completed its acquisition of 250 Digital. The acquisition of the cryptocurrency management firm included the team and all its liquid cryptocurrency strategies previously run by CoinFund.

After the acquisition, Franklin Templeton officially announced that they had established a new division called Franklin Crypto. The division would be responsible for providing actively managed digital asset products to institutional investors.

Chris Perkins will serve as head of Franklin Crypto, while Seth Ginns will assume the role of Chief Investment Officer for the new group.

In doing so, Franklin Templeton is building upon its current research, portfolio construction, and risk management expertise.

However, what is equally important is that the firm’s expansion into crypto management is indicative of increasing institutional confidence in digital assets amid recent volatility.

Capital growth outpaces activity

As Franklin Templeton continues to grow its cryptocurrency business with new institutional investment in its tokenized product offering, the company’s on-chain value of its tokenized asset platform has grown steadily through 2025 and into 2026.

The on-chain value of Benji currently stands at $2.51 billion. Of this, approximately 61% or $1.5 billion resides on Ethereum [ETH]. Additionally, Stellar [XLM] hosts an additional $670.7 million.

These numbers indicate that investors prefer exposure across multiple chains over being limited to one chain.

Yet a different trend is emerging beneath the surface. Monthly transfers have declined by 81.6% from $900.8 million to $176.5 million while asset values are at record highs.

Therefore, it is clear that investors are continuing to accumulate tokenized products but are not moving their money in and out of those products at anywhere near the rate they were prior to the decline.

While this indicates a reduction in speculation and therefore increases the likelihood of long-term price stabilization, the decrease in trades also lowers the amount of available liquidity in these markets.

Currently, capital commitment does appear to exceed trade activity, and further evidence exists of the institutionalization of tokenized finance.

Final Summary

• Franklin Templeton’s acquisition of 250 Digital and launch of Franklin Crypto signal deeper institutional commitment to digital assets.
• Franklin Templeton’s $2.51 billion Benji platform shows capital accumulation is outpacing trading activity across tokenized markets.