Singapore Doubles Down on Tokenization as Franklin Templeton Lands Fund Approval

Wall Street’s old guard just got a blockchain facelift—Singapore greenlights Franklin Templeton’s tokenized fund, proving regulators will play ball when traditional finance wears crypto’s jersey.

Why it matters: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) isn’t just tolerating tokenization—it’s actively clearing the runway. This approval signals institutional DeFi might finally escape ’pilot program’ purgatory.

The cynical take: Nothing makes regulators move faster than watching asset managers repackage 20th-century products with distributed ledger glitter. Innovation? More like financial repackaging with extra steps.

Tokenization market continues to expand with new products and players

While there is no date yet for when the fund will launch in Singapore, the MOVE by Franklin Templeton highlights the growth of real-world assets (RWA) tokenization. The firm is already one of the biggest players in the emerging market, with its tokenized US treasury product BENJI having almost $750 million in market cap.

Interestingly, VanEck recently ventured into tokenization with its own tokenized US Treasury fund, VBILL. Other firms such as BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Apollo also have tokenized funds. Overall, the total value of on-chain RWA now stands at $22.57 billion, with an 8.33% growth in the last 30 days.

Meanwhile, the sector’s potential has become increasingly evident to policymakers, likely influencing the MAS decision to approve the Franklin Templeton fund. Singapore is one of the leading countries in terms of regulatory clarity on financial innovations, which has allowed it to become a major hub for crypto activity.

Interestingly, even US regulators are recognizing the potential impact of tokenization. The new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Paul Atkins, compared the tokenization of securities in the financial sector to the transition from analog to digital audio in the music industry.

In a recent report, the Federal Reserve of New York also identified tokenization as the future of finance. The Project Pine report, which was conducted in collaboration with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), found that central banks can implement monetary policies in a tokenized world.

Ethereum is pushing to maintain dominance in the RWA sector

Meanwhile, ethereum is at the center of the on-chain RWA ecosystem, with the network holding 58.37% of the market share for RWA value. Its layer-2 networks, such as ZkSync era, Arbitrum, and Polygon, account for another 25% of the value.

The network is now pushing to maintain that dominance by unveiling a “One Trillion Security” initiative that will further strengthen its resilience as more RWA value flows to the network. Security is crucial to why many major asset issuers choose Ethereum over any other blockchain to launch their tokenized products.

However, the competition for blockchain networks dominating the RWA market will likely increase in the coming years as other networks continue to scale towards meeting institutional standards.

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