Franklin Templeton acquires digital assets investment firm in active crypto management push
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Mutual fund giant Franklin Templeton As the firm deepens its digital holdings, it has agreed to acquire 250 Digital, a small crypto investment firm that will join its newly formed Franklin Crypto unit.
By acquiring 250, Franklin Templeton hopes to expand its actively managed crypto investment offerings for institutional clients beyond fundamental exposure through products such as bitcoin ETFs. The firm manages $1.8 billion in global assets.
“Their investment capabilities and differentiated strategies strengthen our capabilities in digital assets and position us among a small group of global asset managers with a dedicated, institutional-grade crypto investment management team, enhancing our ability to serve our clients worldwide,” Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said in a statement. he said.
The deal is expected to close in the second quarter, and part of the payment will be made using BENJI tokens, digital asset securities that represent shares of Franklin Templeton’s blockchain-based investment fund. Franklin OnChain US Government Monetary Fund.
The move is part of a broader trend of institutions opting for yield and sophisticated active strategies as passive crypto products (like spot bitcoin and ether ETFs) mature. This comes as crypto private asset manager CoinShares began trading on Nasdaq on Wednesday.
Despite recent price pressure, institutional appetite for crypto is growing. BitcoinAs Bitcoin ETF inflows show, its rise to the October peak reflected more steady institutional buying versus retail momentum-chasing as in previous cycles. Entries in March Black Rock‘s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) It started to rise again and caught the 4-month series of mostly negligible rises. Additionally, Morgan Stanley plans to launch its own spot bitcoin ETF after remaining largely conservative on crypto for years.
According to CoinMetrics, Bitcoin’s price has fallen 41% in the last six months and 21% this year.
Franklin Templeton has strong roots in active investing and has become one of the more progressive legacy financial firms when it comes to crypto. Its footprint in digital assets includes crypto ETFs, traditional funds tokenized on public blockchains, and partnerships with major crypto industry platforms like Binance.
