BlackRock has made tokenized share classes available for 12 share classes across six of its European Institutional Cash Series money market funds, totaling $311 billion in assets under management as of June 30. The tokenized shares trade on Ethereum through JPMorgan's Kinexys platform and enable 24/7 peer-to-peer transfers.
Kinexys, JPMorgan's blockchain infrastructure platform, processes more than $300 billion in intraday repo volume. BlackRock's European money market funds hold mostly short-duration debt from sovereign and corporate issuers, making them a core holding for institutional treasurers across the continent.
Tokenized fund shares collapse settlement time and operational friction. A buyer and seller on Kinexys can complete a transfer in minutes rather than the T+1 or T+2 cycle that governs traditional fund transactions. The shares retain the same regulatory status as their non-tokenized counterparts, issued under UCITS and Irish fund law. Holders accrue interest at the same daily net asset value as the underlying fund.
BlackRock's move follows the firm's tokenization push across asset classes. In 2024, the firm launched its iShares tokenized gold fund on the Ethereum blockchain. Last year, BlackRock tokenized Treasury bills through Ethereum and other networks. The European money market deployment is the largest dollar amount of traditional assets BlackRock has made available in tokenized form.
JPMorgan built Kinexys to settle institutional transactions on permissioned blockchain infrastructure. The platform has processed transactions for major asset managers and financial institutions since its launch. Tokenized fund shares on Kinexys inherit the platform's institutional-grade custody and clearing arrangements.
The European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation, which took effect in December 2023, created a licensing framework for tokenized asset issuers. BlackRock's structure uses existing fund law rather than the new MiCA regime, keeping regulatory oversight within the established UCITS framework.
BlackRock now operates tokenized versions of assets spanning equities, fixed income, commodities and cash across multiple blockchain networks. The firm has not disclosed whether it plans to extend tokenized money market fund availability to other regions or expand to other fund families. JPMorgan and BlackRock have partnered on blockchain initiatives since 2021, when the two firms co-led a working group on tokenized securities infrastructure.
