A $911 billion fund giant will issue its own blockchain fund shares: Federated Hermes plans a first product in early 2027

Federated Hermes, the Pittsburgh asset manager with about $911.6 billion under management, plans to issue blockchain-based shares of its own funds. The firm and Prometheum, a crypto market infrastructure company, announced a partnership on Tuesday, October 13, and said they expect the first tokenized fund product in the first quarter of 2027.

Under the plan, Prometheum Capital, its SEC-registered and FINRA-member broker-dealer, will hold, clear and settle the products and make them available to other broker-dealers through its correspondent clearing platform, the companies said. That would let brokers and registered advisers offer the funds to their own US clients.

Federated Hermes has worked with tokenization before, but through partners such as Archax, Goldman Sachs and Conduit Digital that issued tokenized versions of its funds, CoinDesk reported. This time it plans to issue its own tokenized share classes. The funds and the blockchains have not been disclosed; CoinDesk reported that money market funds are a likely starting point.

"Tokenized funds are the logical next step for our broker-dealer and RIA clients," Kevin Barr, Federated Hermes's director of digital assets, said in the announcement. The firm joins BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and JPMorgan among large managers putting funds on blockchains, CoinDesk reported.