BlackRock has launched its first tokenised access to funds in Europe, introducing on-chain share classes for 12 of its Institutional Cash Series money market funds across euro, sterling and US dollar strategies. The tokens are minted on the Ethereum blockchain using Kinexys by J.P. Morgan's asset-tokenisation platform.
Each token represents a share in one of the underlying ICS funds; the fund's transfer agent continues to maintain the official shareholder register, so the tokenised layer sits on top of, rather than replaces, existing fund administration. BlackRock said the combined assets of the underlying funds total $311bn — a figure describing the funds' overall assets under management, not the value tokenised so far.
The new share classes support 24/7 peer-to-peer transferability between approved investor wallets through smart contracts, near real-time visibility of holdings, and use cases including digital collateral management, corporate treasury and liquidity optimisation, and integration with other tokenised financial ecosystems. Tokenised share classes are being made available across 15 markets, including the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Singapore.
"Today's launches represent an important evolution in how investors access and manage cash, while helping modernise capital markets infrastructure," said Beccy Milchem, BlackRock's Global Head of Cash Distribution. Hannah Winter, BlackRock's Head of Digital Cash, said the tokenised funds preserve the same capital-preservation and risk-management standards as their traditional counterparts. Kara Kennedy of Kinexys said tokenisation had "moved from concept to execution," with Kinexys handling token minting and burning as the translation layer between on-chain activity and the funds' traditional transfer-agent infrastructure.
The launch makes BlackRock one of the most prominent traditional asset managers to layer tokenised distribution onto an existing, regulated fund range rather than a stand-alone crypto-native product — a model increasingly favoured by large incumbents entering the space through 2026.