F/m Investments has requested the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for permission to tokenize its prominent Treasury ETF. The asset manager, valued at $18 billion, filed an application on Wednesday for relief that would enable the F/m US Treasury 3 Month Bill ETF (TBIL) to document the ownership of its approximately $6 billion shares via a permissioned blockchain, while retaining its status as a conventional exchange-traded fund under the 1940 Act.

In their press release, F/m characterizes this application as “the first of its type” from an ETF issuer seeking U.S. regulatory relief specifically for tokenized shares of an investment firm. Their onchain representation would utilize the same Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number and maintain the same rights, fees, voting power, and economic terms as TBIL shares currently do, ultimately making tokenization just an alternative method of recording share ownership.

A Broader Tokenization Trend in Traditional Funds

F/m’s methodology is closely aligned with recent initiatives from Franklin Templeton, another significant asset manager in the U.S. that has initiated blockchain-enabled U.S. government money market funds and other tokenization trials. They are shifting share ownership records for their government money market fund onto a public blockchain while keeping the product compliant under the Investment Company Act.

If granted the requested relief by the SEC, F/m declares that TBIL will be capable of supporting both traditional brokerage methods and digital-native, “token-aware” platforms through a single share class, without altering its investment goals or portfolio.

These developments occur at a time when the New York Stock Exchange has unveiled plans for a new platform focused on 24/7 trading and onchain settlement of tokenized equities and ETFs, substantiating the transition from trials to mainstream adoption of tokenization.