HashKey Holdings Limited and Franklin Templeton will begin distributing the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Liquidity Fund to eligible professional digital-asset clients in Asia on Aug. 24, 2026, giving HashKey’s institutional-facing customer base access to a blockchain-enabled fund focused on U.S. government money market instruments and dollar cash assets.
The product, branded grBENJI, will be offered through an “Earn” channel on HashKey’s platform. It will not be offered to the Hong Kong public, and access will be restricted to professional clients, the companies said.
The arrangement brings one of the largest traditional asset managers into closer contact with regulated digital-asset infrastructure in Hong Kong, where licensed platforms have been building services beyond spot cryptocurrency trading. For professional clients already holding digital assets or cash within the HashKey ecosystem, grBENJI could provide a route into a government-focused liquidity vehicle without requiring the same operational processes associated with moving funds between conventional brokerage, banking and crypto platforms.
Franklin Templeton’s fund uses blockchain-based infrastructure to record and administer fund interests. The underlying strategy remains centered on conventional short-term instruments: U.S. government money market securities and U.S. dollar cash assets. That structure places the product closer to cash-management tools than to the volatile crypto assets generally associated with digital-asset platforms.
A regulated distribution channel in Hong Kong
HashKey Exchange said it will make the fund available through its Earn service, a category generally used by platforms to present yield-generating products to eligible users. The announcement does not describe the fund as a deposit product, and returns would depend on the fund’s holdings, expenses and prevailing short-term interest rates.
The professional-client restriction is particularly relevant in Hong Kong’s tightly supervised virtual-asset market. HashKey Exchange said it operates under approvals from the Securities and Futures Commission to run a virtual-asset trading platform through Type 1, or Dealing in Securities, and Type 7, or Providing Automated Trading Services, licenses under the Securities and Futures Ordinance. It also said it holds a license under the Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance.
Those permissions help determine which products the platform can distribute and to whom. In this case, the companies have drawn a clear boundary around availability: grBENJI is aimed at eligible professional clients rather than retail customers, and it is not being marketed to the Hong Kong public.
HashKey Exchange also said it holds ISO 27001 information-security and ISO 27701 data-privacy management certifications. The platform said it does not provide services to users in Mainland China, the United States and certain other jurisdictions.
Tokenized access to short-term government assets
Tokenized money-market products have become one of the more practical uses of blockchain infrastructure in financial markets. Instead of representing a cryptocurrency or speculative token, the digital record represents an interest in a fund that holds traditional financial assets. Blockchain rails can potentially streamline ownership records, transfers and settlement processes, though the fund’s exposure and risk profile are ultimately determined by its underlying portfolio.
For clients active in digital assets, the appeal is straightforward: funds that might otherwise remain as non-yielding platform balances could be allocated to a vehicle backed primarily by short-term U.S. government instruments and cash assets. Such products can serve as a cash-management allocation for firms seeking dollar liquidity while limiting direct exposure to cryptocurrency price movements.
That does not make the fund risk-free. Money-market portfolios can be affected by changes in short-term rates, liquidity conditions, operating costs and the credit quality of any permitted holdings. Professional clients will also need to consider the product’s dealing terms, redemption arrangements, custody setup and the legal framework governing tokenized fund interests.
The launch also shows how tokenization is increasingly being applied to familiar financial products rather than solely to novel digital assets. The technology may alter the way ownership is recorded and accessed, while the economic purpose of the fund remains conventional: managing liquid dollar assets through a government-oriented money-market strategy.
Franklin Templeton expands its digital-asset distribution links
Franklin Templeton said it had $1.80 trillion in assets under management as of July 31, 2026. Founded in 1947, the firm said it operates in more than 35 countries.
The HashKey arrangement adds an Asia-focused distribution route for Franklin Templeton’s onchain fund offering and links the asset manager with a platform operating in Hong Kong’s licensed virtual-asset framework. Rather than creating a new cryptocurrency-linked investment strategy, the partnership distributes an existing type of traditional liquidity product through digital-asset infrastructure.
HashKey and Franklin Templeton indicated that their cooperation could later extend to additional tokenized products. HashKey Exchange BG CEO Ru said the firms’ multi-jurisdictional presence includes Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai and Bermuda, suggesting the companies are positioning the initial launch as a foundation for future regional distribution work.
The immediate test will be whether professional digital-asset clients use the product as an operational treasury tool rather than simply another yield option. If the distribution gains traction, it would give HashKey a more diversified product range while offering Franklin Templeton access to clients seeking regulated, blockchain-enabled exposure to short-term U.S. government assets.
Explore how tokenized treasuries and stable yields work in practice with Toobit’s tokenized equities guide today.
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