BlackRock has announced the launch of its first tokenized fund access offering in Europe through on-chain share classes for select money market funds within the BlackRock Institutional Cash Series (ICS) range. Through this initiative, the asset manager expands blockchain-based capabilities to Europe’s largest liquidity management platform, with the objective of enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accessibility.
To execute this, BlackRock will leverage J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys asset tokenization platform, enabling the new ICS fund share classes to issue digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. According to the manager, this framework will allow eligible investors to access tokenized versions of existing liquidity management strategies while preserving the institutional strength and regulatory oversight inherent to money market funds.
“The new tokenized share classes offer several key features, including access to a yield-generating money market fund backed by broad scale and high liquidity. Additional capabilities include the ability to transfer tokens between investors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, alongside near-real-time visibility and movement of positions on the blockchain. Each token represents an underlying share of an ICS fund, while the official shareholder register will continue to be managed via the fund’s traditional transfer agent infrastructure,” the firm stated.
New Use Cases for Money Market Funds
BlackRock notes that tokenized share classes enable the direct transfer of fund holdings between authorized digital wallets using smart contracts—automated software programs that execute once predefined conditions are met. According to the firm, this technology will unlock new application layers for money market funds, including:
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Corporate Treasury Optimization: Streamlining liquidity management and capital efficiency.
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Digital Collateral Management: Facilitating real-time pledge and transfer mechanics.
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Broadened Distribution Channels: Expanding delivery via banks, wealth management platforms, and digital networks.
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Financial Ecosystem Integration: Seamlessly embedding liquidity into broader tokenized market structures.
Beccy Milchem, Global Head of Liquidity Distribution and International Cash Management at BlackRock, noted: “This launch represents a major step in the evolution of how investors access and manage their liquidity, while contributing to the modernization of capital markets infrastructure.”
Hannah Winter, Head of Digital Cash at BlackRock, emphasized: “Tokenized money market funds allow high-quality, short-term investments to transition into digital environments while maintaining the exact same standards of capital preservation, liquidity, and risk management.”
Kara Kennedy, Global Head of Market Development at Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, added that “tokenization has moved from concept to execution,” pointing out that tokenizing share classes brings native blockchain functionalities to established institutional products.
Partnership with Kinexys by J.P. Morgan
Kinexys serves as the dedicated blockchain business unit within J.P. Morgan Payments. Its tokenization platform plays a pivotal role in issuing and managing the lifecycle of the tokenized shares, handling critical operations such as token minting and burning.
Furthermore, Kinexys functions as the operational bridge between on-chain activity and the traditional transfer agent infrastructure, ensuring full alignment with existing operational workflows while introducing digital asset functionality.