Northern Trust Asset Management has launched a tokenised share class of its NIF Treasury Instruments Portfolio, marking its entry into blockchain-enabled fund structures as onchain US Treasurys approach $11 billion in total value.
The US-based asset manager said the new structure uses distributed ledger technology to maintain a digital mirror of share ownership, while the underlying portfolio continues investing in short-term US Treasury instruments and does not hold crypto assets.
The shares will initially be offered through BNY’s LiquidityDirect platform operating on Goldman Sachs’ Digital Asset Platform, with authorised intermediaries maintaining blockchain-based ownership records for clients.
The NIF Treasury Instruments Portfolio seeks to maintain a stable $1.00 per-share value through investments in diversified short-term Treasurys, though it is not FDIC-insured and may lose value.
Northern Trust Asset Management, which oversees about $1.4 trillion in assets including $355 billion in liquidity strategies, said the launch represents its formal entry into the digital assets market.
Tokenised money market funds have become a leading real-world asset use case for blockchain technology, with nearly $11 billion in US Treasury debt now represented on public blockchains according to RWA.xyz data.
The expansion comes as major players including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and WisdomTree deepen their tokenised Treasury offerings, while the Bank for International Settlements has cautioned that such structures could introduce operational and liquidity risks if redemptions accelerate or onchain liquidity weakens.