Franklin Templeton and Ondo Finance have partnered to offer tokenized versions of Franklin Templeton’s exchange-traded funds, tradeable around the clock through crypto wallets. The initiative bypasses the traditional brokerage system entirely. Katie Wheeler, managing director of partnerships at Ondo Finance, described the program during an appearance on Bloomberg ETF IQ on March 30, 2026, as reported by Bloomberg.
- Franklin Templeton ETFs will be available as tokenized products tradeable 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- Transactions occur directly from crypto wallets, cutting out traditional brokerages and clearinghouses
- Smart contracts handle on-chain execution, eliminating T+1 or T+2 settlement delays and brokerage fees
- Katie Wheeler, Ondo Finance’s managing director of partnerships, presented the initiative on Bloomberg ETF IQ on March 30, 2026
What Happened
Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s largest asset managers, has entered a formal partnership with crypto-native firm Ondo Finance to distribute tokenized ETF products directly through blockchain wallets. The announcement was made public on March 30, 2026, via Bloomberg ETF IQ, with Wheeler serving as the primary spokesperson for Ondo’s role in the arrangement. No specific launch date was disclosed in the available reporting, and the precise ETFs to be tokenized were not identified publicly at the time of the interview.
Why It Matters
Traditional ETFs are bound by market hours, brokerage relationships, and multi-day settlement cycles that are infrastructure legacies of pre-digital finance. The involvement of a firm of Franklin Templeton’s scale — managing over $1.5 trillion in assets as of recent filings — alongside a crypto-native operator marks a concrete step toward institutional integration of tokenized securities, rather than an experimental one. Earlier tokenized fund efforts from firms including BlackRock and WisdomTree have laid partial groundwork, but typically involved permissioned blockchain structures with more limited wallet accessibility.
Technical Details
The partnership uses smart contracts to execute ETF transactions on-chain, removing the need for broker-dealers as intermediaries at the point of trade. Settlement occurs at transaction time through the blockchain, eliminating the T+1 settlement standard that currently governs U.S. equity and ETF markets. Access is provided directly through crypto wallets, shifting custody and distribution away from conventional brokerage platforms. A direct quote from Wheeler was not available in text form at time of publication, as the primary source is a video segment; her full remarks are accessible via the Bloomberg ETF IQ broadcast linked above.
Who’s Affected
Retail and institutional investors holding compatible crypto wallets would gain direct access to Franklin Templeton ETF products without requiring a brokerage account or custodian relationship. Traditional ETF distributors and brokerage platforms face structural disintermediation if the model gains adoption, as the value chain collapses from issuer to wallet holder. Ondo Finance extends its institutional product footprint significantly by naming one of the industry’s most recognized asset managers as a partner.
What’s Next
Wheeler did not specify which Franklin Templeton ETFs would be included in the initial rollout, nor provide a public deployment timeline during the Bloomberg appearance. The regulatory classification of tokenized ETF interests under existing U.S. securities law — including whether they constitute redeemable fund shares or secondary-market tokens — remains unresolved and will shape how the product can be marketed and distributed. Both firms are expected to release further technical and compliance documentation as the program approaches launch.
