Fidelity quietly dropped a bombshell by filing to tokenize $80 million in Treasury fund shares on Ethereum, launching their “OnChain” version May 30, 2025. While Wall Street titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton already claimed their stakes in the $5 billion tokenized Treasury market, Fidelity’s massive $5.8 trillion asset base changes the game entirely. They’re not only experimenting—they’re going full blockchain with smart contracts, 24/7 trading, and faster settlements that could reshape how institutional money moves.
While most fund managers are still figuring out what blockchain even means, Fidelity just filed to launch an Ethereum-based tokenized share class for its Treasury fund. The “OnChain” version of their Fidelity Treasury Digital Fund is set to go live May 30, 2025, assuming the SEC doesn’t throw a wrench into the works.
This isn’t some crypto moonshot either. We’re talking about $80 million worth of boring old U.S. Treasury bills. The kind of stuff your grandmother would buy if she knew what they were. But here’s where it gets interesting – Fidelity isn’t tokenizing the actual Treasury bills. They’re tokenizing the fund shares themselves.
Think of it like getting a blockchain receipt for your mutual fund. Every transaction gets recorded on Ethereum’s network for anyone to see, while Fidelity keeps the official books the old-fashioned way. Daily reconciliation between blockchain records and traditional bookkeeping guarantees nobody loses track of who owns what. Despite market volatility concerns, institutional investors are gradually warming up to blockchain-based assets.
Ethereum got the nod because, frankly, it works. Smart contracts handle the heavy lifting, the developer ecosystem is mature, and proof-of-stake consensus doesn’t burn through electricity like Bitcoin’s energy-hungry mining operation. Fidelity plans to expand beyond Ethereum eventually, but they’re starting with the obvious choice.
The regulatory dance remains vital. The SEC’s blessing legitimizes this whole experiment and keeps institutional investors from running scared. Nothing changes about the underlying assets or compliance requirements – it’s just a fancier way to track ownership.
Fidelity joins BlackRock and Franklin Templeton in the tokenized Treasury space, where the total market cap is approaching $5 billion. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund leads the pack at $1.4 billion, proving there’s real demand for blockchain-based traditional assets. Franklin Templeton pioneered this space as the first on-chain money market product back in 2021. Behind the scenes, Fidelity has been actively soliciting business from other tokenization asset managers like Ondo Finance to expand their reach in this growing market.
The benefits are straightforward: faster settlements, round-the-clock trading capabilities, and better liquidity for typically static investments. With $5.8 trillion in assets under management, Fidelity isn’t exactly taking a massive risk here. They’re making a calculated bet that tokenization represents the future of asset management.
Wall Street’s blockchain revolution isn’t coming with fanfare and crypto bros. It’s arriving quietly, wrapped in Treasury bills and regulatory compliance. Sometimes the most boring innovations prove most transformative.
