In a move that signals the financial world’s slow but inevitable capitulation to blockchain, Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) have begun offering tokenized money market funds. Because nothing says “future of finance” like rebranding 50-year-old investment vehicles as blockchain chic.
BNY, one of the oldest custody banks in the world, with $53 trillion in assets under watchful, buttoned-up care—has rolled out the tokenized offering through its LiquidityDirect platform. Institutional heavyweights like BlackRock and Fidelity have signed on, clearly deciding they might as well get comfortable while the walls of TradFi gently creak and shift.
But don’t get too excited—this isn’t your decentralized fever dream. The blockchain involved is Goldman’s own, meaning everything is just decentralized enough to feel exciting without actually loosening anyone’s grip on control. BNY will handle the serious business of minting and burning tokens, all while keeping traditional records safely tucked in a vault somewhere in Jersey.
As BNY’s global head of liquidity, Laide Majiyagbe, diplomatically put it, tokenization will help “eliminate the frictions of traditional markets”; which is a polite way of saying that T+2 settlement cycles are starting to feel like dial-up internet.
Tokenized U.S. Treasuries are now a $7 billion market, up from “basically no one cared” last year. Still, that’s a drop in the $7 trillion money market ocean. But don’t worry, the press releases assure us this is the future. Probably. Maybe.
The real twist? This new tokenized setup allows near-instant settlement and the possibility of using fund shares as collateral across systems. That’s right: your money market fund might finally be able to do something useful besides sit quietly in a corner earning 4.8%.
In short, this isn’t crypto invading Wall Street, it’s Wall Street borrowing crypto’s eyeliner and pretending not to care if anyone notices. And with Goldman and BNY at the helm, expect the revolution to arrive promptly at 9:00 a.m., after coffee.
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