We shared news about the Wyoming Stable Token earlier today. The long-awaited launch of the FRNT token appears to be imminent. But what held the launch up for so long? Governor Mark Gordon of Wyoming announced its launch as happening in “a few days” on August 19, 2025. FRNT still is not available for sale to the public. In today’s story we look at how the leading financial global investment firm ‘might be’ supporting the Wyoming Stable Token.
As we mentioned in the last story, Franklin Templeton has recently started to become a major player in the crypto space. Current President and CEO Jenny Johnson was at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2024 where she highlighted the firms ambitions in blockchain and artificial intelligence. Since then we know that Franklin Advisers, a division of Franklin Templeton, has won a contract to provide reserves management for FRNT.
How Franklin Templeton Became a Leader in Digital Assets
Sandy Kaul is a very important figure in the pivot to blockchain that has happened at Franklin Templeton. Sandy is the Executive Vice President and Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton. She joined from Citi in April 2022 where she caught the eye of CEO Jenny Johnson prior to joining.
In August 2024 at the first Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, Jenny was a keynote speaker. The title of the talk was “Investing in Digital Assets and Tokenizing the World.” Jenny shared with the audience how she had found out about Sandy before she joined the company, when she was at Citi running a program on the future of blockchain. How Sandy now worked for Franklin Templeton.
Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market fund is revolutionary. Jenny explained how the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) was launched on the Stellar network in April 2021. This helped cement the role of blockchain within Franklin Templeton. It also confirmed the company as a pioneer at the frontier of disruption in capital markets.
In an interview from August 2025, Sandy Kaul shared her thoughts about stablecoins and money market funds. Sandy compares stablecoins to money that is on a checking account which is used for payments. She sees tokenized money market funds or TMMFs as savings accounts where money can be used for payments, but less often.
Sandy points to how TMMFs are there to gain yield. This is clear when you consider how many companies put money into overnight interest-yielding instruments. TMMFs fulfil the same purpose. She argues that a TMMF could be seen as a superior form of payment due to its being a regulated product backed by the SEC. This gives it a distinct advantage over stablecoins.
Companies working with Franklin Templeton can benefit from the Benji Technology Platform. Fondly named after Benjamin Franklin, Benji is Franklin Templeton’s proprietary blockchain-integrated stack, designed to facilitate the administration of token-based investments. Wyoming’s stable token may also benefit from Benji’s ability to process transactions and record share owners if implemented.
The Problem with Wyoming
We chose to highlight Sandy Kaul and her thoughts on TMMFs because she was one of the people that CEO Jenny Johnson mentioned during her keynote in Wyoming. There are many more important figures responsible for TMMFs at Franklin Templeton today. However, this is where the problems arise. None of them have mentioned the innovation happening in Wyoming and Franklin Templeton’s involvement specifically. Nor has the CEO or Sandy. There are plenty press releases on Franklin Templeton’s site. But none of them mention Wyoming. The same is the case for social media where the company has stayed quiet on the topic of FRNT.
Wyoming’s ground-breaking project has not been mentioned by Franklin Templeton. In the meantime the investment firm has mentioned its partnerships with the Canton Network and earlier with Binance, the leading crypto exchange. In the meantime others like Fireblocks or LayerZero have both been vocal about the collaboration with Wyoming.
Franklin Ties Up with Binance
On 10 September 2025, Franklin Templeton proudly announced a collaboration with Binance to “develop digital asset initiatives and products” for the exchange’s 280 million users. Sandy Kaul commented how “partnerships like this one will be essential to accelerating adoption,”
She added how “we see blockchain not as a threat to legacy systems, but as an opportunity to reimagine them. By working with Binance, we can harness tokenization to bring institutional-grade solutions like our Benji Technology Platform to a wider set of investors and help bridge the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance.”
On 19 August 2025, the same firm could have been proudly sharing that it would be managing the reserves for Wyoming’s Frontier Stable Token (FRNT). The first state-issued, fully audited, 1:1 USD-backed stablecoin in U.S. history, complete with monthly public attestations and statutory trust oversight. Fireblocks did announce here.
The contradiction is stark: while one arm of Franklin Templeton is helping a sovereign American state build potentially the most transparent stablecoin infrastructure on earth, another is climbing into bed with an exchange. An exchange that, as Disruption Banking revealed in 2022, offered a senior regulatory role to an undercover journalist with a fabricated CV after just four casual interviews. An exchange still operating under U.S. federal monitorship for systemic money-laundering failures.
For a firm that has spent years branding itself as the compliant, institutional face of tokenization, the Binance tie-up is not a badge of forward-thinking; it is a potential reputational risk. Yet, Franklin Templeton is happy to share the news of its collaboration with Binance. At the same time, staying quiet on the topic of FRNT.
What Did Franklin Templeton Say?
The DisruptionBanking editorial team reached out to Franklin Templeton on October 30, 2025, with a list of specific questions related to the firm’s involvement with the Wyoming Stable Token Commission (WYST). Binance was not mentioned. The request for comment was justified as Franklin Templeton’s logo was displayed on the WYST website.
The questions were about the Reserve Composition and Management of FRNT. Other questions about Transparency and Reporting, Risk and Compliance Oversight, Investor and Holder Protections, and Strategic Outlook on the relationship were raised. Initially the response was positive. However, later it changed and Franklin Templeton’s position was that any questions should be directed at Anthony Apollo from WYST and that the November 20 public meeting of WYST would be a good place to hear more.
Our editorial team has been busy reviewing the meeting in the meantime. More to come on this soon.
Author: Andy Samu
#FRNT #WYST #Stablecoin #CBDC #Wyoming #FranklinTempleton #Benji #Binance
See Also:
Lawfare: How Elite London Law Firm Helped Cover Up Binance’s Crimes | Disruption Banking
Franklin Templeton’s Benji Technology Platform Expands to Canton Network | Disruption Banking
As of time of writing the Wyoming Stable Token Commission website states the following:
“Please be aware that Frontier Stable Tokens (FRNT) are NOT available purchase at this time.”
As a leading reporting channel for crypto and capital markets news, DisruptionBanking has a long history of covering innovation and matters of public interest. We may not have been the first, but we wrote about the first stable coin used by a government in the Caribbean, the Sand Dollar. Our team helped raise questions and awareness about the Libor Trading scandals as part of a series of interviews with Tom Hayes. And, whilst the work of the new CEO of Binance appears to be taking the company in the right direction, one must not forget that the company has a patchy history at best. Especially with DisruptionBanking.
