Janus Henderson launches first Nasdaq-licensed tokenized fund

Janus Henderson, a London-based asset manager overseeing roughly $500 billion, is bringing one of Wall Street’s best-known stock indexes onto blockchain rails through an issuer-sponsored fund. The launch comes amid an escalating debate over who gets to tokenize traditional securities.

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The firm teamed up with tokenization platform Centrifuge to launch JQQQ, a fund tracking the Nasdaq-100 Index, home to tech giants including Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft. The fund is issued on the Stellar XLM$0.1853 blockchain, the companies said Tuesday.

JQQQ follows the introduction of a similar onchain index fund product last year, the Janus Henderson Anemoy S&P 500 Fund (SPXA), which was the first tokenized index fund licensed by the S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Janus Henderson said its onchain investment platform now includes more than $1 billion across Treasuries, structured credit and equities.

The launch marks another step in Wall Street’s push to bring traditional investments onchain, expanding beyond U.S. Treasuries, money market funds and private credit into stock-market products. It also highlights a growing divide between funds issued onchain by their managers and third-party tokens created without the underlying companies’ involvement.

Issuer-backed versus third-party tokens

JQQQ follows the issuer-sponsored model. Janus Henderson issues and manages the fund, Centrifuge provides the blockchain infrastructure and Nasdaq licenses the index to track.