JQQQ, launched with tokenization firm Centrifuge under a license from Nasdaq, is issued only on the Stellar network and is open initially to eligible non-U.S. professional investors. The companies did not disclose its fee or size.
A mainstream fund manager has put one of the best-known U.S. stock benchmarks onchain, and the first rule is that U.S. investors are not allowed in.
Janus Henderson and Centrifuge launched JQQQ on Tuesday, a fund that seeks to track the Nasdaq-100 Index under a license from Nasdaq. Centrifuge called it the first blockchain-native fund offering exposure to the index through an issuer-sponsored investment strategy. It is issued exclusively on the Stellar network, where, Janus Henderson said, real-world assets surpassed $4 billion this year.
The fund is open initially to eligible professional investors outside the United States and is not available to U.S. persons. The companies cited "competitive fees" but did not disclose a fee rate, the fund's starting assets or its minimum investment. The launch brings Janus Henderson's onchain fund platform to more than $1 billion in assets, CoinDesk reported.
What is different about it
Many tokenized stocks available today are issued by third parties that hold the underlying shares and issue a token that mirrors them. JQQQ is managed by Janus Henderson itself, as a fund, under a license from the index owner. That makes it a different legal product: the token represents an interest in a fund run by the manager, rather than a claim on shares held by someone else.
It is not an exchange-traded fund and does not trade on Nasdaq. Its market is the blockchain.
Why it matters
Tokenization has so far been concentrated in Treasury bills and private credit, where the product is simple and the buyers are institutions. An equity index fund from a large manager, licensed by the index provider, extends the model to stocks. If index owners are willing to license their benchmarks for onchain funds, others could follow.
The exclusion of U.S. investors is the other half of the story. The companies did not say whether they plan a version for U.S. investors or what it would take to offer one.
Two readings
One reading is that this is a milestone for tokenized equities: a licensed benchmark, a known manager and a fund structure rather than a synthetic token.
The other is that it is a small pilot. It is closed to the largest pool of investors, limited to professionals, issued on one network, and launched without a disclosed fee, size or minimum.
What to watch
Disclosure of JQQQ's assets and fee, whether other index providers license benchmarks for onchain funds, any plan to register a version for U.S. investors, and activity on the Stellar network.