What is a tokenised Treasury fund or money market fund?

The building blocks

The US Treasury sells Treasury bills for terms of four weeks to 52 weeks. When a bill matures, you are paid its face value.³

A money market fund invests in liquid, short-term debt, cash and cash equivalents. Many people use one as a place to keep cash.⁴

A fund's net asset value (NAV) is its total assets minus its total liabilities.⁵ The NAV per share is the NAV divided by the number of shares. A fund with an NAV of $100 million and 10 million shares has an NAV per share of $10.⁵

A transfer agent keeps the record of who owns a security. It records changes of ownership and pays out dividends.⁶ In Franklin Templeton's tokenised fund, below, that record lives partly on public blockchains.¹

Franklin Templeton's on-chain fund

The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund started on 6 April 2021.¹ In 2023, Franklin Templeton said it was the first US-registered fund to use a public blockchain to process transactions and record share ownership.⁷ One share is one BENJI token.⁷

Its summary prospectus, dated 1 August 2026, says this.¹

• It invests at least 99.5% of its assets in government securities, cash and fully backed repurchase agreements. A repurchase agreement is a deal to buy government securities and sell them back, usually within days, at a higher price.¹
• It tries to keep a stable $1.00 share price.¹
• Its transfer agent keeps the official record of ownership in a system that combines ordinary records with public blockchains.¹
• The minimum first purchase for most accounts is $20.¹

BlackRock's BUIDL

BlackRock launched BUIDL on the Ethereum blockchain on 20 March 2024. It was BlackRock's first tokenised fund on a public blockchain.² The launch release said the fund invests 100% of its assets in cash, US Treasury bills and repurchase agreements.²

Its March 2024 launch release said BUIDL aims for a stable $1 per token. It said the fund pays dividends that build up daily, as new tokens sent to investors' wallets each month.² It named Securitize as transfer agent, and Bank of New York Mellon as the custodian holding the fund's assets.²

At launch, BUIDL was only for qualified investors, with a $5 million minimum. Tokens could move at any hour, but only to other pre-approved investors.² On 22 October 2026, RWA.xyz showed about $2.2 billion in BUIDL.⁸

Price up, or more tokens?

Not every fund holds its price at $1.00. As of October 2026, Ondo Finance's documents say its OUSG tokens are issued at the current NAV per token, which Ondo updates each business day.⁹ They give an example: deposit $100,000 when the NAV is $100 per token, and you get 1,000 tokens.⁹

So the yield shows up in one of two ways. Either you get more tokens, as with BUIDL, or each token is worth more, as with OUSG.^2,9

How big is it?

The FSB said tokenised money market products roughly doubled from May 2023 to May 2024. They reached more than $1 billion on permissionless blockchains, where anyone may take part.¹⁰ On 22 October 2026, RWA.xyz showed $14.40 billion in tokenised US Treasury funds, across 119 assets.¹¹

Are they cheaper? The World Economic Forum (WEF) found limited evidence so far that tokenised funds significantly cut costs. It said their returns are often in line with ordinary funds.¹²