Franklin Templeton opens Franklin Crypto; Binance, Taiko news

Franklin Templeton finalized the acquisition of crypto asset manager 250 Digital and created a dedicated unit called Franklin Crypto. The unit will combine 250 Digital’s investment team and strategies with Franklin Templeton’s existing digital assets group and will be led by former 250 Digital executives Christopher Perkins and Seth Ginns alongside Franklin Templeton digital assets executive Tony Pecore. Franklin Templeton said the unit will expand its capabilities in tokenized assets and blockchain-based finance. The firm’s tokenized asset portfolio rose from about $768 million to more than $2.5 billion over the past year.

Franklin Crypto will build on recent partnerships including work with Binance to allow tokenized money market funds as collateral for crypto trading and collaboration with Ondo Finance to increase access to tokenized ETFs on blockchain networks. The firm has also proposed Bitcoin-linked ETF strategies that reinvest stock dividends.

Regulatory questions are increasing for Binance in the European Union ahead of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) transitional deadline on July 1. Greek regulators are preparing to reject Binance’s EU licensing application, which could affect the exchange’s ability to serve EU residents if other national authorities take similar positions. Data from on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant shows euro-denominated trades account for about 1% of Binance’s spot volume; CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn noted the exchange’s inflows are distributed across many regions.

Taiko, an Ethereum layer-2 chain, urged users to withdraw assets from bridges after an exploit on a bridge protocol. Taiko confirmed a compromise of its chain state verification mechanism and warned that “the security of all bridges deployed on Taiko can no longer be relied upon,” adding users should “withdraw their funds from all bridges deployed on Taiko immediately.”

Security firm Blockaid investigated the incident and identified a flaw in how the bridge validated source signals. Blockaid found message proofs were accepted as valid on Ethereum without corresponding legitimate proofs on the Taiko chain, which allowed an attacker to register and later retrieve fraudulent bridge messages and release assets from an ERC-20 vault. Blockaid estimated at least $1 million was stolen, while on-chain trackers put the total at up to $1.7 million.

Bridges connect different blockchains by locking or escrowing tokens on one chain and minting or releasing equivalent tokens on another. A failure in verification of messages or proofs can let attackers claim assets without proper locks on the source chain; investigators reported that mechanism at work in the Taiko exploit.

Franklin Crypto will operate within Franklin Templeton’s digital assets group using 250 Digital’s team and strategies alongside the firm’s existing resources. Binance’s EU licensing application remains under review by national authorities and the investigation into the Taiko bridge exploit continues.