Franklin Templeton has closed its acquisition of 250 Digital and switched on Franklin Crypto, a new active digital-asset arm aimed at pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional allocators. The close lands inside the second-quarter target the firm set when it announced the deal on April 1.
The transaction brings the 250 Digital investment team and all liquid cryptocurrency strategies previously run by CoinFund Management under Franklin Templeton, per the announcement reported by The Block.
Franklin Templeton manages roughly $1.78 trillion in assets, and the firm said it would invest in the inherited strategies as part of the agreement. Part of the consideration is being paid in BENJI tokens tied to the firm's on-chain money-market fund, structuring the deal partly on chain.
250 Digital was spun out of CoinFund earlier this year by Christopher Perkins and Seth Ginns, both former managing partners at the venture firm. Perkins will head the new Franklin Crypto unit and Ginns will serve as chief investment officer, leading the team alongside Franklin Templeton Digital Assets veteran Tony Pecore and reporting to Sandy Kaul, the firm's head of innovation, according to the April 1 release.
