CoinDesk
Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson told the Proof of Talk summit in Paris that major financial firms are slow to adopt public blockchains because the technology directly threatens the fee-based business models built on intermediating transactions. "This technology threatens a huge number of business models that exist today in traditional finance," Johnson said. "If you see any kind of hesitation, it's because there is a threat to the business model. Think about the toll-takers in a transaction."
The CEO backed the argument with internal numbers from her firm's tokenized money market fund, Benji, which runs on the Stellar blockchain. Johnson said processing 50,000 transactions cost roughly $1.30 on Franklin Templeton's legacy system versus about $1.13 on Stellar — a roughly 13% unit-cost reduction that scales as volumes grow, with the elimination of intermediary reconciliation providing the larger structural gain.
Why it matters
Johnson's framing reframes the institutional hesitation around public chains as a revenue-defense problem, not a technology problem. Her $1.74 trillion firm publicly running core money-market infrastructure on a public network — and now pairing Benji with MoonPay for stablecoin on-ramps — puts a ceiling on the "blockchain isn't ready for institutions" narrative that has stalled adoption at the largest asset managers. The cost data Johnson cited undercuts the long-standing defense that legacy rails are cheaper at scale.
The pushback she anticipates is also instructive. Blockstream CEO Adam Back argued on the same stage that bitcoin enables true self-custody and fiscal privacy without an institutional intermediary. Johnson conceded the technical point but argued most investors will still delegate custody to regulated third parties — a stance that protects Franklin Templeton's own institutional future while endorsing the underlying rails.
Frequently asked questions
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What did Franklin Templeton's CEO say about blockchain and Wall Street?
Jenny Johnson told the Proof of Talk summit in Paris that major financial firms are slow to adopt public blockchains because the technology directly threatens fee-based business models built on intermediating transactions. She called incumbents "toll-takers in a transaction."
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What cost data did Franklin Templeton share about running Benji on Stellar?
Johnson said processing 50,000 transactions on Franklin Templeton's legacy system cost about $1.30, versus about $1.13 on the Stellar blockchain — a roughly 13% unit-cost reduction that scales as volume grows once reconciliation overhead is included.
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What is Franklin Templeton's Benji tokenized money market fund?
Benji is Franklin Templeton's tokenized money market fund, operated on the Stellar blockchain. The same week as the panel, Franklin Templeton announced a MoonPay partnership letting institutional investors move between stablecoins and Benji through an onchain workflow.
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How did the CEO respond to arguments for bitcoin self-custody?
Blockstream CEO Adam Back argued on the same panel that bitcoin enables true self-custody and fiscal privacy without an institutional partner. Johnson conceded the technical point but said most investors will still demand regulated custodians and standardized compliance rails.
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Why does this matter for tokenized real-world assets?
A CEO running a $1.74T asset manager publicly endorsing public-chain settlement as cheaper than legacy rails is direct support for the RWA thesis behind Stellar, Ondo, and tokenized Treasuries. It also raises the bar for permissioned alternatives that preserve incumbent fee revenue.
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