Franklin Templeton teams up with MoonPay to let big investors swap stablecoins for yields 24/7

Franklin Templeton is expanding its digital asset strategy through a new partnership with MoonPay that will allow institutional investors to move between stablecoins and the asset manager's tokenized money market fund through an onchain workflow.

The integration connects Franklin Templeton's Benji Technology Platform with MoonPay Trade's infrastructure, creating a pathway for eligible institutions to exchange supported stablecoins for exposure to the firm's tokenized money market fund and back again without leaving blockchain networks.

The partnership comes as Franklin Templeton pushes deeper into digital assets. In April, the $1.74 trillion asset manager announced plans to launch Franklin Crypto, a dedicated cryptocurrency division anchored by the acquisition of crypto investment firm 250 Digital. The new unit will focus on active crypto investment strategies, while Franklin Templeton continues building tokenized versions of traditional financial products.

Sandy Kaul, Franklin Templeton's head of innovation and digital assets, said the company sees 2026 as "the year of the universal liquidity layer," where stablecoins, tokenized funds and other forms of digital money become interoperable and can be used across trading, lending and collateral applications.

Kaul said one of the most compelling use cases for institutions is the ability to move stablecoin balances into tokenized money market funds and earn yield around the clock.

"We trade 24/7 in the crypto markets," she said in an interview with CoinDesk. Unlike traditional money market funds, which typically require investors to hold positions through the end of a trading day to receive interest, tokenized funds can distribute yield based on the precise period an investor holds the asset, she said.

According to Kaul, institutional demand for that functionality has been strong.

"We had tremendous demand for this," she said, referring to the ability to move between stablecoins and tokenized money market funds at any time while maintaining exposure to yield-generating assets.

The partnership also reflects MoonPay's expansion beyond crypto trading and payments into tokenized real-world assets, an area attracting growing interest from traditional financial institutions seeking to bring regulated investment products onchain.