Janus takes T-Bills fund into the blockchain

Global asset management firm Janus Henderson has unveiled a new blockchain-backed, fixed-income fund promising investors direct access to US treasury yield.

The Anemoy Liquid Treasury Fund (LTF), the fund manager boasts, “empowers investors to earn returns on idle stablecoins”. Rated as investment-grade, the T-Bill fund offers a maximum maturity of six months and daily redemptions in USD.

Janus will serve as sub-adviser to the LTF, managing the fund’s day-to-day operations and portfolio through Tabula, its wholly owned subsidiary.

The LTF was created by Anemoy Limited, a ‘DeFi’ (or decentralised finance) specialist, and will be distributed via the Centrifuge public blockchain (upon which Anemoy is built). According to Janus, this will give the fund access to more than $170 billion in idle capital on the Centrifuge chain.

The fund leverages distributed ledger technology (DLT) to tokenise asset holdings – effectively a digital version of an investors’ share/bond holding – enabling them to be traded and recorded on this blockchain.

Among the touted benefits of tokenised assets include lower management costs, the ability for investors to view holdings in real-time, a consistent and immutable record of and updates to transactions, and clearer records of share ownership rights and compliance mandates (for instance, KYC and AML checks).

Nick Cherney, Janus’ head of innovation said the fund positions the firm well for the “possibility that blockchain technology will transform traditional finance in the long term”.

He added that the partnership “represents a unique opportunity to help shape this future, while also providing stable and compliant solutions for on-chain markets”.

“This collaboration represents a significant step forward in bridging traditional and decentralised finance, by bringing robust institutional collateral pools into decentralised autonomous organisation and stablecoin ecosystems”.

Anemoy, Janus further noted, also “plays a vital role at the intersection of traditional and decentralised finance, acting as a strategic conduit” for its entry into digital assets.

Blockchain readiness and tokenisation represent key pillars of the firm’s innovation strategy, it said.

Martin Quensel, co-founder of both Anemoy and Centrifuge, welcomed the partnership, which he said “underscores our commitment to pioneering the integration of traditional financial products with cutting-edge blockchain technology, creating new opportunities for investors, and advancing the decentralised finance ecosystem”.

Tabula chief executive Michael John Lytle added: “The intersection of DeFi, TradFi, and systematic investing is an area that should create huge opportunities for investors in the coming years”.

“It is a natural overlap between the rapid expansion of ETF solutions and the need to underpin digital investments with stable, liquid stores of value, like US Treasury bills”.