Franklin Templeton is at the forefront of the tokenization wave in Asia through retail-centric ETFs and strategic alliances to transform finance amid geopolitical change.
Asia is becoming the giant of tokenization. The new regulations in Japan in 2025 cleared the way for Franklin Templeton’s new ETF products to retail investors.
Max Gokhman, Deputy CIO at Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions 2, explained that retail investors first drive market liquidity, which institutional investors then follow as markets mature.
According to Gokhman, retail investors may need greater liquidity, but once they reach sufficient scale, they can provide liquidity to institutions. Japan’s move shows that strong retail demand lays the foundation for institutional adoption of tokenized markets.
Institutional investors, however, desire products that minimize volatility and increase liquidity, which is important to ensure wide adoption.
Spot crypto ETFs in Hong Kong raised 400 million on their debut day, and Singapore is designing tokenized fund systems to reach retail users by 2027 in line with its MAS regulations.
Franklin Templeton found high-tech investors at Token2049 in Singapore not only demanding exposure but also personalized tokenization plans, which illustrates the high level of maturity in the digital asset market in Asia.
Major Bitcoin holdings by MetaPlanet and Solana lending worth $2.7 billion illustrate how highly demanded investments can also pose systemic risks.
Franklin Templeton supports regulated tokenized ETFs in order to introduce stability and transparency.
Gokhman emphasized that the one-to-one support provided in tokenized ETFs is in contrast to leveraged proxy bets, which decrease counterparty risk and make the asset class more scalable.
Geopolitical Tides and the New Era of Tokenized Assets
The emergence of tokenization is contributed to by geopolitical trends. Alternative transaction rails are increasingly attractive as the dollar dominance gradually wanes due to recent policies of the U.S.
To bypass SWIFT, several countries are adopting blockchain-based tokenized assets as alternative global payment systems.
Gokhman observed, the policies of the Trump administration have placed pressure on the demand for digital assets, and Sovereign treasuries are shifting to de-dollarization.
This change transforms tokenized finance past ETFs, which highlights its strategic significance in the backdrop of global tensions.
Being round-the-clock as opposed to the traditional assets, tokenization breaks the market rhythms. CoinGecko reports that more than 5.5 billion tokenized treasuries and nearly 225 billion stablecoins exist, demonstrating the vast scope of tokenization.
Franklin Templeton is developing on-chain portfolios combining digital, public, and private assets and expanding into new tokenization spaces, such as cultural assets, which can only be enabled by blockchain.
The increasing strategic alliances that Franklin Templeton ends up in, such as the one with Binance and SBI Holdings, are indicators of the strong willingness to be at the forefront of this change.
The company regards APAC not only as an area of growth but also as a beacon of tokenization innovation in the world, a balance between scale in the US and the advanced level of digital assets in Asia.