Author: Climber, CryptoPulse Labs
Over the past few years, the crypto industry has experienced several waves of hype, including DeFi, NFTs, and memes. However, what truly drew Wall Street in on a large scale was not highly volatile crypto assets, but rather RWA (Responsive Virtual Assets). Currently, the global RWA market has surpassed $30 billion.
In recent days, traditional financial giants such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan Chase have made successive moves, from tokenized funds and on-chain money market products to tokenized stocks and on-chain yield instruments. Wall Street is gradually moving traditional financial markets onto the blockchain.
The real significance behind this is not just about launching a few on-chain products; it's more like a fundamental structural upgrade of the global financial system.
I. BlackRock's Continued Expansion: On-Chain Funds Begin to Truly Integrate into the Traditional Financial System
In this wave of tokenization, BlackRock's actions have garnered the most attention.
On May 12, BlackRock submitted a new tokenized fund structure application to the U.S. SEC and continued to select digital asset platform Securitize to provide on-chain infrastructure support.
The biggest focus this time is not just on putting funds on the blockchain, but on the formal integration of on-chain assets with the traditional financial regulatory system.
Under the new architecture, on-chain fund share ownership records will be integrated with a regulated transfer agent system and investor access system.
In other words, in the future, the fund shares held by users on the blockchain will no longer just be data in the blockchain, but will be able to directly enter the US regulated fund registration system.
In the past, many traditional institutions, while interested in blockchain, have always been concerned about how on-chain assets would meet regulatory requirements. Now, BlackRock is attempting to directly integrate on-chain assets into the traditional financial framework, which means that the institutional barrier between on-chain finance and traditional finance is gradually being broken down.
In fact, BlackRock had already begun to position itself in the tokenization market.
Back in 2024, BlackRock's BUIDL fund, launched in partnership with Securitize, became one of the most successful tokenized product cases in the industry. Currently, its assets under management have grown to approximately $2.3 billion, marking a significant step for institutional investors entering the on-chain finance arena.
In the past, many people thought that tokenization was just a new packaging, but in reality, what Wall Street really values is the financial efficiency brought by blockchain.
Traditional financial markets involve numerous intermediaries, from banks and securities firms to clearing houses, each layer of which incurs time costs and transaction fees. Blockchain's greatest advantage lies in its ability to enable real-time settlement, transparent ledger recording, and 24/7 circulation globally.
For large asset management institutions, if funds, bonds, and money market products can all be put on the blockchain in the future, the operating efficiency of the entire financial market may be rewritten.
II. Franklin Partners with Kraken: Accelerating the Deployment of Tokenized Stocks and On-Chain Yield Products
Besides BlackRock, Franklin Templeton's recent moves are also worth noting.
Franklin Templeton recently announced a partnership with Payward, the parent company of the crypto trading platform Kraken, to jointly explore opportunities for on-chain tokenization of traditional financial products.
This collaboration covers a wide range of areas, including tokenized stocks, compliant custody, actively managed yield products, and institutional-grade crypto liquidity services.
The most crucial point is that both parties are exploring the launch of on-chain versions of Franklin Templeton's financial products. In other words, in the future, some traditional funds, income products, and even securities may circulate directly in the form of on-chain tokens.
This represents a very significant industry shift: in the past, the crypto industry proactively approached traditional finance, but now traditional finance is also proactively approaching the crypto market.
In particular, Kraken's tokenized stock business, xStocks, has validated market demand in recent years. Data shows that the business has accumulated over $30 billion in trading volume since its launch last year.
This shows that the global market has a real demand for on-chain securities trading, rather than just a concept.
Traditional securities markets suffer from numerous problems, such as fixed trading hours, complex cross-border investments, and long settlement cycles. The biggest advantage of tokenized stocks is that they enable securities to circulate and be traded globally in real-time on the blockchain, similar to stablecoins.
Meanwhile, Franklin Templeton is one of the traditional asset management firms most actively embracing the crypto industry. It has already launched several crypto ETFs, issued the tokenized money market fund BENJI, and partnered with Ondo Finance to develop on-chain financial products.
These actions clearly demonstrate that more and more traditional financial institutions no longer regard blockchain as a peripheral market, but are beginning to see it as an important component of the future financial system.
III. JPMorgan Chase Advances On-Chain Money Funds: An On-Chain Dollar System is Taking Shape
Compared to BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, JPMorgan Chase's approach leans more towards an on-chain dollar liquidity system.
On May 12, JPMorgan Chase filed filings for the JPMorgan OnChain Liquidity-Token Money Market Fund (ticker symbol JLTXX), planning to launch its second tokenized money market fund.
The fund will issue digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, while the underlying assets will mainly consist of U.S. Treasury bonds and repurchase agreements.
These types of products are worth paying close attention to because money market funds are essentially close to institutional versions of stablecoins.
It is backed by highly liquid, low-risk assets such as cash and US Treasury bonds, while also providing a certain return. Now, more and more institutions are trying to put these assets on the blockchain.
The reason is actually quite simple.
Stablecoins solve the payment problem, but on-chain money market funds solve the return problem.
In the past, a large amount of on-chain USD funds could only remain in stablecoin accounts, making it difficult to obtain stable returns. However, if users can directly invest on-chain USD into tokenized money market funds in the future, the entire on-chain USD financial system will form a complete closed loop.
This is why more and more traditional banks are starting to pay attention to on-chain finance. They have discovered that blockchain is not just a cryptographic technology, but has the potential to become a new type of clearing network for the future global financial system.
Over the past year, tokenized US Treasury bonds have become one of the fastest-growing segments in the entire RWA market. JPMorgan Chase's continued push for on-chain money market funds also signifies that major banks have begun to formally participate in the construction of the on-chain dollar system.
Conclusion
Looking back at the crypto industry over the past few years, you'll find that the entire market is undergoing very significant changes.
Early industry discussions focused more on public chain performance, DeFi mining, the NFT craze, and Meme coin hype. Now, more and more funds and institutions are starting to pay attention to on-chain US Treasury bonds, tokenized funds, on-chain securities, and institutional-grade financial infrastructure.
This means that the crypto industry is gradually shifting from a high-risk speculative market to the construction of a new financial system. RWA is becoming one of the most important themes in this phase.
