The CEO of Franklin Templeton has just broken a taboo. In front of the industry gathered in Paris at the Proof of Talk summit, Jenny Johnson said what few players of her stature dare to say: crypto and blockchain directly threaten the profits of large financial institutions. It’s not a decentralized startup that says this. She is the head of an asset manager worth $1.74 trillion.
In brief
- Franklin Templeton says Wall Street fears blockchain for concrete economic reasons.
- The transition to crypto and digital assets is underway, but creates a structural conflict with traditional revenue.
- Banks could retain a central role in compliance and asset custody.
Why is crypto threatening Wall Street's business model?
During a panel at the Proof of Talk summit in Paris, Jenny Johnson bluntly identified the reason for the blockage. According to the CEO of Franklin Templeton, the blockchain technology challenges a considerable number of economic models in traditional finance.
The fact is that the crypto blockchain allows instant settlement via smart contracts. Result: large banks will no longer be able to collect transaction fees by acting as intermediaries. Which is the heart of the problem.
Benji, Stellar and MoonPay: concrete evidence of the crypto shift
Franklin Templeton does not only put forward theoretical arguments. The group already operates Benji, a tokenized monetary fund operating notably on the Stellar blockchain. The figures presented by Jenny Johnson can only attract the attention of the crypto community :
- $1.30 per transaction on traditional infrastructure;
- $1.13 per transaction on Stellar;
- comparison carried out on 50,000 transactions.
Certainly, the gap seems modest at first glance. On a large scale, however, it can generate significant savings. Applied to billions of transactions, it represents a massive destruction of income for traditional players.
That's not all! The group also announced a partnership with MoonPay. The goal: to facilitate exchanges between stablecoins and tokenized funds in an onchain environment.
Will crypto really replace banks?
Despite its blockchain supportJenny Johnson does not foresee the disappearance of financial institutions. Facing Blockstream CEO Adam Back during his interventionshe recalled that the majority of investors are still looking for trusted players for the custody of their assets. Custody services, regulatory compliance and KYC checks should therefore retain an important place.
According to Johnson, the transformation seems rather to take the form of a hybrid model. Crypto blockchain could reduce costs and speed up settlements, while financial institutions would continue to provide security and regulatory framework. A development that could permanently reshape thefuture of crypto and global finance.
One thing is certain: the year 2026 marks the tipping point where crypto infrastructures are no longer a technological option, but an obligation of economic survival for global finance. Some are even already announcing the end of the separation between banks and crypto-assets.
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