Franklin Templeton closed its 250 Digital acquisition Monday, launching Franklin Crypto as a dedicated active-management unit for digital assets.
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Franklin Templeton closed its acquisition of 250 Digital on Monday and folded the team into a new division called Franklin Crypto. The unit will handle active management of digital assets, including the liquid cryptocurrency strategies that 250 Digital had been running under CoinFund.
The deal brings over the 250 Digital investment staff and consolidates the firm's crypto management under one roof. Franklin Templeton had been building toward a bigger digital-asset footprint for months, and this purchase gives it an in-house team with a track record in liquid token strategies rather than just venture-style bets.
Franklin Crypto will sit inside the firm's broader alternatives unit. The division's mandate covers actively managed crypto portfolios, not passive index products or custody services. That distinction matters because active crypto strategies carry different risk and fee profiles than the passive bitcoin ETFs that have drawn most institutional flows this year.
The 250 Digital team had managed roughly $250 million in liquid crypto assets before the deal closed, according to people familiar with the matter. Franklin Templeton did not disclose the purchase price or the size of the combined crypto AUM after the integration.
Franklin Templeton had already tested the crypto waters with its spot bitcoin ETF filing and a tokenized money-market fund on the Stellar network. The 250 Digital acquisition shifts the firm from product-by-product experimentation to a dedicated operating unit with a full-time investment staff.
The move mirrors a broader push by traditional asset managers to build crypto-native teams rather than outsource to sub-advisors. BlackRock hired crypto specialists for its ETF unit. Fidelity expanded its digital-assets division. Franklin Templeton's approach – buying an existing team rather than hiring one – compresses the timeline but carries integration risk if the 250 Digital culture does not mesh with Franklin's compliance-heavy framework.
Franklin Crypto will report to the firm's head of alternatives. The division plans to launch its first actively managed crypto fund in the second quarter, subject to SEC registration.
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