Franklin Templeton will acquire cryptocurrency investment management firm 250 Digital for an undisclosed sum in a deal expected to close in the second quarter, the companies said Wednesday.
Among the assets Franklin Templeton is buying are 250 Digital’s investment team and “all liquid cryptocurrency strategies previously run by CoinFund,” according to a release Wednesday.
CoinFund President – and 250 Digital’s CEO – Christopher Perkins will lead the newly formed Franklin Crypto unit alongside fellow CoinFund alum Seth Ginns and Franklin Templeton Digital Assets executive Tony Pecore.
“Crypto’s institutional moment has arrived, and Franklin Crypto will help our global clients navigate this complex and rapidly evolving asset class by delivering the expertise, knowledge and digital asset products that meet their sophisticated investment needs,” Perkins said in Wednesday’s release.
One perhaps groundbreaking facet of the deal is that some of its value will be paid in BENJI tokens, the digital asset securities representing shares of Franklin Templeton’s blockchain-based mutual fund.
Franklin Crypto aims to offer an expanded suite of crypto and blockchain venture-capital products to pension and sovereign-wealth funds and other institutional investors.
But this is far from Franklin Templeton’s first foray into crypto. Since embracing the asset class in 2018, the investment firm has built a digital-asset team with more than 50 employees. The company was also among roughly 10 asset managers to launch the first batch of U.S.-listed bitcoin exchange-traded funds in 2024.
Franklin Templeton Digital Assets managed about $1.8 billion in assets, as of Dec. 31.
Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson called Franklin Crypto an “exciting addition.”
“[The team’s] investment talent and differentiated strategies strengthen our capabilities in digital assets and position us among a small group of global asset managers with a dedicated, institutional-grade crypto investment management team, enhancing our ability to serve clients worldwide,” Johnson said.
The acquisition comes as the value of bitcoin, crypto’s flagship currency, has fallen roughly 46% since reaching a high of more than $126,000 in October, according to Yahoo Finance.
In a LinkedIn post Wednesday, Perkins said the deal’s timing “couldn't be better” because even though crypto’s value may be comparatively down, confidence is trending up.
“We are currently seeing a unique divergence: while broader market sentiment may fluctuate, the underlying fundamentals of the crypto markets continue to improve at an exponential rate,” Perkins wrote.
Sandy Kaul, Franklin Templeton’s head of innovation – to whom Franklin Crypto will report – appears to agree.
“This big selloff that we had in the crypto markets is creating a very unique opportunity that really made us all decide that this is the right time to pull the trigger,” Kaul told The Wall Street Journal. “I think that there’s going to be a lot of interest in creating more of a stable home for many of these top crypto trading talents.”
Perkins noted the convergence of traditional finance and digital assets, saying, in his post, that it’s “no longer a ‘future’ trend – it is the reality of 2026.”
He also said the market’s views on crypto have drastically changed.
“[If you] look back even just a few years … there was a perceived ‘reputational risk’ for an institution to be involved in crypto,” he wrote Wednesday. “Today, that narrative has completely flipped. In 2026, the true reputational risk lies in not having a digital asset strategy.”
Before jumping to CoinFund in 2021, Perkins spent 13 years at Citi, including as global co-head of futures, clearing and foreign-exchange prime brokerage, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Ginns, who will serve as Franklin Crypto’s chief investment officer, began his finance career at Credit Suisse, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“We share a long-term vision, and with the client-centric culture and distribution strengths of Franklin Templeton, we are well positioned to expand our collective reach and accelerate the growth and adoption of our strategies globally,” he said in Wednesday’s release.
