London, UK – 23 April, 2024 – Archax, the first FCA regulated digital asset exchange, broker and custodian, today announced that it is expanding the range of fund shares it offers in tokenised form with the provision of the BlackRock ICS US Treasury money market fund1 (MMF). This builds on its launch of tokenised access to abrdn’s MMFs last year, which Archax has created on both the Hedera and Ethereum blockchains.
This additional BlackRock MMF, along with existing offerings, are all available directly on the Archax platform, as well as through connected networks. The first transaction of tokenised shares of the BlackRock MMF, which was also tokenised on Hedera, the open-source, proof-of-stake public ledger, was completed across the Ownera FinP2P digital asset network.
In the current high interest-rate environment, putting cash, treasury and stablecoin assets to work is more important than ever. MMFs are a useful vehicle as they have the potential to provide institutional stability and yield, due to their underlying investments in short-term debt products, and reduce single bank or stablecoin provider counterparty risk. In addition, through creating a secondary market for the tokenised instruments, Archax can provide investors with the benefit of almost instantaneous transfer of MMF shares throughout the day – an advantage which can also see the tokens being used for collateral movement instead of just traditional subscriptions/redemptions.
Graham Rodford, CEO and co-founder of Archax, comments: “Money market funds from different asset managers can follow different underlying investment theses – for example investing in short-term governmental debt issuances or commercial short-term debt issuances. Consequently, it is important to have a range of offerings available to cater to differing client needs. Adding more funds into our portfolio of tokenised shares of MMF offerings expands the flavours we have on offer and so allows us to serve a broader range of potential clients.”
“As well as MMF product breadth, product distribution is also vitally important”, continues Rodford. “And so we are pleased to be expanding our partnership with Ownera to further leverage their FinP2P network for distribution of tokenised shares in MMFs and to help facilitate our first $multi-million trade on Hedera too.”
Ami Ben David, CEO and co-founder of Ownera, adds: “Using a simple Ownera Buy-Side Router, suitable banks of all sizes, wealth managers, asset managers, broker-dealers, RIAs (registered investment advisors), and exchanges can route transactions to the tokenized MMFs offered by Archax. This is another step towards realising the vision we share with Archax and other partners across the ecosystem, of a global institutional tokenized assets ecosystem with market-wide access, distribution and liquidity.”
With all the excitement in the marketplace around real-world-asset (RWA) tokenisation, funds are certainly front and centre as a use case. MMFs are particularly prominent too, as these provide benefits to and serve both the Traditional Finance (TradFi) tokenised world as well as the pure crypto space.
Shayne Higdon, CEO of The HBAR Foundation, comments: “The addition of MMF shares tokenised on Hedera, enabled by Archax, is a huge vote of confidence. Hedera's unmatched speed, security, and low-cost infrastructure is ideally suited for the institutional-grade tokenisation of real-world assets made possible by Archax.”
Capital at Risk. We offer our tokenised MMF shares to professional and institutional clients only.
1 Money Market Fund (MMF) is not a guaranteed investment vehicle. An investment in MMFs is different from an investment in deposits; the principal invested in a MMF is capable of fluctuation and the risk of loss of the principal is to be borne by the investor. The MMF does not rely on external support for guaranteeing the liquidity of the MMF or stabilising the NAV per share.
About Archax
Archax is a global, regulated, digital asset exchange, brokerage and custodian based in London. Founded by experts from the financial markets world and backed by an accomplished advisory board, Archax offers a credible bridge between the blockchain-centric crypto community and the traditional investment space.
Archax is the first-ever firm to receive FCA regulation as a digital securities exchange, custodian and brokerage. It was also the first firm to be listed on the FCA’s Cryptoasset Register as a VASP (Virtual Asset Service Provider).
Archax has been designed specifically for institutional investors to trade in all types of digital assets, from cryptocurrencies to digital securities. It is built using existing, proven, resilient, scalable, high-performance exchange infrastructure, hosted in top-tier datacentre space, and integrated into the existing institutional trading workflow.
For more information, go to www.archax.com.
About Ownera
Ownera is a technology company delivering interoperability solutions to the world of tokenized assets. Ownera’s routers enable global distribution and liquidity by connecting tokenized assets distributed by sell-side institutions to buy-side demand. The routers facilitate the messaging, negotiation and settlement of transactions between the counterparties and their various regulated service providers including custodians, broker dealers, transfer agents, cash providers, lenders and others. Ownera’s routers implement the open FinP2P protocol originally pioneered by the company. Ownera is backed by strategic investors including J.P. Morgan, U.S. Bancorp, LRC Group, Draper Goren Holm, tokentus Investment AG, Accomplice Blockchain, Polymorphic Capital, The Ropart Group and Archax.
For more information, go to www.ownera.io.
About the HBAR Foundation
The HBAR Foundation supports the creation of Web3 communities built on the Hedera network, by empowering and funding the builders developing these communities. The Foundation’s six funds - focused on the Crypto Economy, Metaverse, Sustainability, Fintech, Privacy, and Female Founders - each support communities within those areas, and the interconnectedness enables applications to participate as part of a larger ecosystem.
The collective power of these funds enables entrepreneurs, developers, and enterprises of all sizes to tackle some of the world’s largest problems, and create and control their own economies, all built on the Hedera public network. Whether you’re building something new or migrating an existing EVM-based application and community, the HBAR Foundation is here to support you. For additional information, please visit https://hbarfoundation.org.
