Update (Jan. 23, 2026, at 12:15 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include commentary from Alex Morris, CEO of F/m Investments and Aisha Hunt, strategic ETF and tokenization counsel.
F/m Investments asked the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow it to tokenize shares of its flagship Treasury exchange-traded fund (ETF).
The $18 billion asset manager filed Wednesday for exemptive relief to let the F/m US Treasury 3 Month Bill ETF (TBIL) record ownership of its roughly $6 billion in shares on a permissioned blockchain, while remaining a standard 1940 Act exchange‑traded fund.
In its press release, F/m described the filing as the “first of its kind” from an ETF issuer seeking US regulatory relief specifically for tokenized shares of a registered investment company.
F/m CEO Alex Morris told Cointelegraph the firm chose TBIL because it is “a straightforward product with existing liquidity and distribution,” making it an ideal test case “without asking investors to take active management or other risks.”
The company said the onchain representation would use the same Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures (CUSIP) number, and carry the same rights, fees, voting power and economic terms as TBIL shares today, effectively making tokenization just another way to record who owns the shares, rather than a separate new asset.
“Economically it’s the same TBIL — same portfolio, ticker, CUSIP and creation/redemption process,” Morris added, noting that blockchain recording “could make it easier for institutions to move and pledge that exposure across platforms.”
A broader tokenization trend in traditional funds
F/m’s approach closely tracks recent experiments by Franklin Templeton, a major US asset manager that has launched blockchain‑enabled US government money market funds and other tokenization pilots.
But while Franklin’s model operates on a public blockchain, F/m’s would remain in the permissioned realm.
Strategic ETF and tokenization counsel to F/m Investment, Aisha Hunt, told Cointelegraph that the application was “technology-neutral” but assumed a ledger “operated by or on behalf of the transfer agent, with nodes limited to regulated intermediaries,” ensuring consistency with existing record‑keeping and oversight.
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The company contrasts its model with “stablecoins or unregistered digital tokens,” emphasizing that TBIL’s tokenized shares would still be subject to independent board oversight, daily portfolio transparency, third‑party custody and audit, and the broader protections of 1940 Act funds.
If the SEC grants the requested relief, F/m says TBIL would be able to support both traditional brokerage rails and digital-native, “token-aware” platforms through a single share class, without changing its investment objective or portfolio.
“Our hope,” said Morris, “is that this filing shows you can upgrade the rails around an ETF without throwing away the ETF rulebook.”
The application came just days after the New York Stock Exchange unveiled plans for a new venue aimed at 24/7 trading and onchain settlement of tokenized stocks and ETFs, as tokenization shifts from pilots to mainstream markets.
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