Franklin Templeton says Wall Street fears blockchain because it threatens its profits
Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said public blockchains threaten fee-based finance models, but can cut transaction costs sharply.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
At a Paris panel, Jenny Johnson argued that Wall Street firms are slow to embrace public blockchains because they undercut the intermediaries who earn fees from today’s transaction systems. She pointed to Franklin Templeton’s tokenized fund work as evidence that onchain rails can be cheaper and still fit regulated custody.
A big money company says some banks dislike blockchains because they can cut out the people who collect fees for moving money around. But the same company also says these new systems can be cheaper, like switching from toll roads to a faster road with fewer toll booths.
Analysis
What Johnson argued
Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said major financial firms are hesitant to adopt public blockchains because the technology threatens profitable middleman roles in traditional finance. Her point was straightforward: if settlement and transfer can happen directly through smart contracts, the firms that collect fees for moving pieces around lose some of that revenue.
The cost example
Johnson used Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market fund, Benji, as an example of why firms are still moving onchain anyway. She said the company’s internal comparison showed about $1.30 per transaction on the old system for 50,000 transactions, versus about $1.13 on Stellar. The gap is small in absolute terms, but Johnson framed it as proof that public networks can be materially cheaper at scale.
Where she thinks institutions are headed
Even while praising blockchain efficiency, Johnson did not argue that everyone will self-custody assets. She said everyday users and institutions still want a trusted third party, not private wallets stored on their own. In her view, custodians and banks still have a future, but that future depends on offering standardized, low-cost compliance rails for digital assets.
Why this matters for crypto adoption
The article’s broader message is that institutional adoption may come from cost savings and workflow improvements, not from ideology. Franklin Templeton’s partnership with MoonPay, announced around the same time, fits that view: it aims to let institutional investors move between stablecoins and the tokenized fund through an onchain workflow. That suggests the next phase of crypto adoption may look less like retail speculation and more like infrastructure replacement.
Key points
- Jenny Johnson said public blockchains threaten the fee-based business models of traditional finance.
- She argued that hesitation from Wall Street comes from a threat to existing profits, not just technical caution.
- Franklin Templeton said its Benji tokenized money market fund was cheaper to run on Stellar than on its old system.
- Johnson said most investors still want regulated custodians rather than holding assets only in private wallets.
- The company’s MoonPay partnership is aimed at letting institutions move between stablecoins and the tokenized fund through an onchain workflow.
If Franklin Templeton’s view proves right, more large institutions could move real money onto public blockchains because the rails are cheaper and faster. That would strengthen the case for tokenized funds, stablecoin workflows, and regulated onchain services.
The transition could stay slow if large financial firms keep defending fee-based business models and resist systems that reduce their role. Even with cheaper blockchain rails, adoption may remain limited if institutions do not trust the custody and compliance setup enough to shift meaningful assets onchain.
