Key Takeaways:
Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon have launched a system allowing institutional clients to access tokenized money market funds.
According to a CNBC report published on July 23, the offering targets the $7.1 trillion market, uses Goldman’s blockchain platform to record fund ownership, and is integrated with BNY’s custody services.
Clients can invest in tokenized share classes of money market funds managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Federated Hermes, and the asset management divisions of both Goldman and BNY. The product is built for institutional users, including hedge funds, pension funds, and corporates.
“We have created the ability for our clients to invest in tokenized money market share classes across a number of fund companies,” said Laide Majiyagbe, Global Head of Liquidity, Financing, and Collateral at BNY.
“The step of tokenizing is important, because today that will enable seamless and efficient transactions, without the frictions that happen in traditional markets,” said Majiyagbe.
Unlike stablecoins, which serve primarily as a medium of exchange, tokenized money market funds offer yield and may function as cash-equivalent holdings for large financial institutions.
According to Goldman and BNY, the funds could eventually be transferred between financial intermediaries without first converting to fiat currency.
Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, said the structure supports future use in collateral and trade settlement. “The sheer scale of this market just offers a huge opportunity to create a lot more efficiency across the whole financial plumbing,” he said.
“That is what’s really powerful, because you’re creating utility in an instrument where it doesn’t exist today,” said McDermott.
The firms see this step as supporting real-time settlement and reducing operational frictions tied to traditional finance infrastructure. They also framed it as complementary to regulatory developments such as the recent GENIUS Act, which establishes a federal framework for stablecoins.
According to the report, U.S. money market funds hold about $7.1 trillion in assets, with roughly $2.5 trillion flowing into the space since the Federal Reserve began raising rates in 2022. Most are backed by short-term government or commercial debt.
The service is currently limited to institutional users and fund providers participating in the platform.
Institutional interest in programmable finance is growing, and assets like money market funds can be embedded into automated workflows across settlement, margining, and treasury operations. Such tokenized instruments could play a central role in modernizing how institutions manage liquidity and collateral across global markets.
While ownership structure remains similar to traditional funds, the digital nature may raise questions around jurisdiction, timing of income recognition, and reporting obligations.
If integrated with global custodians and interoperable ledgers, institutions may eventually move capital between regions outside of standard market hours.
Each share remains subject to existing securities regulation, but the ownership ledger is now maintained on a permissioned blockchain, allowing traceability without changing asset classification.