JPMorgan Taps Ethereum for Tokenized 'MONY' Fund

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JPMorgan Chase will begin offering an Ethereum-based, tokenized money-market fund to qualified investors this week, according to a Monday press release.

The private fund, dubbed My OnChain Net Yield Fund, or “MONY,” will be seeded with $100 million of the bank’s capital before it can be accessed on Tuesday by individuals with at least $5 million in assets or institutions with $25 million or more, the bank said.

MONY, which requires an investment of at least $1 million, represents JPMorgan’s continued experimentation with digital assets, following the debut of its Kinexys Digital Assets platform a year ago. JPMorgan said its MONY fund is available on its Morgan Money platform.

The bank said investors are able to earn a yield while holding the fund’s associated token on-chain, mirroring the functionality of BlackRock’s “BUIDL” fund. When BlackRock debuted its $1.8 billion fund last March, the Wall Street heavyweight also tapped Ethereum.

JPMorgan said that the debut of its MONY fund underscores “the industry’s growing shift toward tokenization of assets on public networks,” noting that money-market funds have historically provided investors with liquidity and stability, in addition to yield.

In a statement, John Donohue, head of global liquidity at JPMorgan Asset Management, said that the bank expects other Globally Systemically Important Banks (or G-SIBs) “to follow our lead in providing clients with greater optionality in how they invest in money market funds.”

BlackRock’s BUIDL fund is available on eight different networks, including Solana, according to data provider RWA.xyz. The fund’s ability to operate across multiple blockchains is enabled by tokenization specialist Securitize and interoperability protocol Wormhole.

Franklin Templeton debuted the first mutual fund on-chain in 2021, which is called the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund. In addition to Ethereum and some layer-2 scaling networks, Franklin Templeton’s fund is available on Avalanche, Stellar, and Aptos.

JPMorgan has made a series of announcements with regards to an expanding line on crypto-focused products in recent weeks. Last month, it proposed structured notes tied to Bitcoin’s price, while reportedly debuting a deposit token on Coinbase’s Base.

Although the bank’s latest was aimed at Ethereum’s ecosystem, the JPMorgan recent activity suggests a multi-chain approach. For example, the bank recently arranged the issuance of commercial paper on Solana on behalf of institutional crypto firm Galaxy Digital.