BlackRock has launched tokenised share classes for a selection of its Institutional Cash Series (ICS) money market funds in Europe, making on-chain access available across 15 markets in sterling, euro and US dollar denominations. The firm describes the move as its first tokenised fund access in Europe, with the underlying funds carrying a combined AUM of approximately $311 billion as at 30 June 2026.
The new share classes sit within existing UCITS-regulated, public debt constant net asset value and low volatility NAV money market fund structures. Each token represents a share in the underlying ICS fund, while the official shareholder register continues to be maintained through the fund’s transfer agent infrastructure. Twelve distinct share classes have been issued across six funds, covering both distributing and accumulating variants in EUR, GBP and USD. The share classes are registered for distribution in, among other jurisdictions, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Singapore.
How the infrastructure works
BlackRock has partnered with Kinexys by J.P. Morgan for the tokenisation layer. Kinexys is J.P. Morgan’s institutional blockchain unit, sitting within J.P. Morgan Payments. It handles token minting and burning, and acts as a translation layer between on-chain activity and the fund’s traditional transfer agent and share register. The tokens are minted on the Ethereum blockchain.
The on-chain structure enables 24/7 peer-to-peer transferability between approved investor wallets via smart contracts, near real-time on-chain settlement visibility and a yield-bearing instrument that retains the liquidity depth of a conventional money market fund. BlackRock says the offering is intended to support use cases including corporate treasury optimisation, digital collateral management, and integration with tokenised financial ecosystems.
Beccy Milchem, global head of cash distribution and head of international cash management Blackrock, said the launches represent “an important evolution in how investors access and manage cash, while helping modernise capital markets infrastructure.” Hannah Winter, head of digital cash at BlackRock, framed the product as bringing high-quality, short-duration exposures into digital formats while preserving the capital preservation and liquidity standards of the conventional fund.
Market and regulatory context
BlackRock’s move is the most substantial institutional tokenised fund launch in Europe to date by assets under management, following the firm’s earlier BUIDL fund in the United States. It enters a market where Franklin Templeton and several other asset managers have been developing tokenised fund products, and where custodians and fund administrators are actively building the plumbing to support on-chain fund record-keeping.
From a regulatory standpoint, European UCITS structures are already well understood by institutional investors across the region, which lowers the adoption barrier compared with a purpose-built on-chain vehicle. The tokens are not themselves classified as securities separate from the underlying fund shares, preserving regulatory continuity. In the UK, the FCA‘s ongoing fund tokenisation work and its sandbox engagement with market participants has signalled openness to exactly this kind of wrapper approach, rather than bespoke on-chain fund vehicles.
The commercial logic points toward treasury and collateral use cases where settlement timing, programmability and real-time visibility have operational value. These are segments where money market funds are already a standard instrument, and where the friction of T+1 or longer settlement cycles in traditional fund rails creates genuine inefficiency. Whether the on-chain overlay generates enough operational benefit to drive adoption at scale will depend on how quickly custodians, prime brokers and corporate treasury platforms build connectivity to the Kinexys infrastructure.
The next markers to watch are live transaction volumes on the new share classes, whether additional asset managers bring comparable structures to market, and the pace at which the FCA and ESMA codify guidance for tokenised UCITS specifically.
AI level 1 of 5: written by Darlyn Ho; AI helped with tone, structure or wording; edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean