BNP Paribas has launched a tokenized share class for its France-based money market fund on the public Ethereum blockchain. The company is Europe’s largest bank, with more than $3 trillion in assets.
This marks another important step in the gradual transition of traditional finance to distributed ledger technology.
BNP Paribas joins tokenization drive, Ethereum RWA market surpasses $15 billion
The pilot project will be implemented through the bank’s AssetFoundry platform and will allow BNP Paribas to test the integration of public blockchain into highly regulated fund structures.
However, banks maintain strict control over digital assets.
Tokenized stocks utilize a permissioned access model. This means that possession and transfer are cryptographically restricted to a whitelist of approved participants who meet strict compliance standards.
“This initiative was carried out as a one-time limited intra-group experiment, allowing BNP Paribas to test new end-to-end processes, from issuing and transfer institutions to tokenization and public blockchain connectivity, within a controlled and regulated framework,” the bank explained.
This walled garden approach reflects a growing consensus among institutional investors. They clearly want to take advantage of the underlying payments infrastructure of public networks like Ethereum.
However, these companies still require the strict access controls inherent in traditional financial systems.
Notably, this initiative follows an earlier BNP Paribas pilot using private blockchain in Luxembourg. This policy shift represents a deliberate institutional transition to public networks in order to gain broader interoperability in the future.
Money market funds have emerged as a major testing ground for Wall Street’s blockchain ambitions. For institutional investors, tokenizing these funds provides a regulated, high-yield alternative to fiat-backed stablecoins.
Additionally, traditional cash processing relies on time-consuming batch-based payment systems, which can lock up capital. Tokenization introduces the possibility of atomic, near-instant payments, significantly increasing capital efficiency.
“This second issuance of a tokenized money market fund, this time using public blockchain infrastructure, supports our continued efforts to explore how tokenization can contribute to improving operational efficiency and security within regulatory frameworks,” Edouard Legrand, chief digital data officer at BNP Paribas Asset Management, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, BNP Paribas joins a crowded field of existing heavyweights such as BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and Fidelity Investments that are rolling out tokenized money market funds on Ethereum.
According to Token Terminal data, Ethereum currently dominates the tokenized asset market, leading stablecoins, commodities, and tokenized funds.
The market capitalization of real-world assets on the Ethereum ecosystem, excluding stablecoins, recently exceeded $15 billion, an increase of about 200% year over year.
