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Plume, a blockchain focused on real-world assets (RWAs), has launched what it calls the first payroll pilot using a tokenized money market fund, enabling employees to convert part of their salaries into yield-bearing fund shares without interacting with crypto exchanges or moving funds onchain manually.
The pilot pairs Plume's onchain infrastructure with Toku's stablecoin payroll platform and WisdomTree's tokenized money market fund, WTGXX. Participating Plume employees can make a one-time election to route a portion of their pay into fund shares, which are purchased via WisdomTree Connect and held in verified wallets linked to WisdomTree Prime accounts.
WTGXX has emerged as one of the fastest-growing tokenized Treasury funds, surging more than 700% between May and August last year. WisdomTree has since expanded the fund's reach to Solana and integrated debit card spending functionality.
From Stablecoins to Fund Shares
The initiative builds on the growing wave of stablecoin-based payroll solutions by adding a layer of passive yield. Rather than landing in a checking account or stablecoin wallet, compensation flows directly into a regulated money market fund — allowing savings to accumulate automatically with each paycheck.
"Trillions of dollars move through payroll every year, and until now, companies earned nothing on the float and employees earned minimal yield in their checking accounts," said Ken O'Friel, CEO of Toku.
Plume and WisdomTree have previously collaborated through an OpenTrade integration that brought WisdomTree's tokenized funds into Plume's Nest staking vaults. The payroll pilot extends that relationship into a new distribution channel.
The pilot positions payroll as a new on-ramp for tokenized funds as investor demand for RWAs continues to grow. Major financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, have launched their own tokenized products, underscoring the sector's rapid institutional adoption.
The program is currently limited to Plume employees but is designed as a reference model for broader adoption across payroll providers and asset managers.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.