BRIEF SUMMARY
Franklin Templeton’s CEO, Jenny Johnson, has reportedly diversified her personal investment portfolio by including cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Uniswap (UNI), and SushiSwap (SUSHI) governance tokens. In an interview with Fortune, Johnson revealed that these crypto investments constitute a small portion of her overall portfolio, marking the first public disclosure of her involvement in the crypto space. While expressing caution about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) due to their uncertain financial returns, Johnson emphasized her preference for investments grounded in clear financial outcomes.
In September, Franklin Templeton, managing over $1.3 trillion in assets, filed for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Johnson remains uncertain about the approval timeline, acknowledging the SEC’s ongoing efforts to determine the best approach. Despite the uncertainty, she believes a spot ETF provides a better avenue for accessing Bitcoin, echoing sentiments shared by other major asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity.
Highlighting Franklin Templeton’s active engagement with blockchain technology, Johnson discussed the firm’s initiatives in launching a tokenized money-market fund, crypto-focused separately managed accounts, and serving as a blockchain node validator. Johnson expressed the belief that blockchain technology facilitates the democratization of private markets by reducing transactional friction and making it easier to securitize or fractionalize ownership of traditionally challenging assets. In her view, the technology streamlines the creation and transfer of ownership for assets that were operationally complex to consider previously.
