Baillie Gifford Brings Tokenized Fund to Solana and Ethereum via BNY
Traditional asset manager Baillie Gifford is launching a tokenized fund on Solana and Ethereum, partnering with BNY in a notable TradFi-crypto convergence.
One of Britain's most storied traditional fund managers is making a concrete move into blockchain-based finance. Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh-based investment firm known for long-horizon bets on growth companies, has introduced a tokenized fund built on both the Solana and Ethereum networks, with custody and infrastructure support from Bank of New York Mellon — commonly known as BNY.
The partnership signals a meaningful acceleration in the so-called TradFi-to-DeFi pipeline, where established financial institutions are no longer merely observing digital asset markets but actively deploying their own products on public blockchains. By choosing two distinct networks — Ethereum, the dominant smart-contract platform, and Solana, which has gained traction for its speed and lower transaction costs — Baillie Gifford appears to be hedging across blockchain architectures rather than committing to a single ecosystem.
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BNY's involvement is equally significant. As one of the world's largest custodian banks, its willingness to underpin a tokenized fund product lends institutional credibility to an asset class that regulators and large allocators have historically treated with caution. Custodians serve as the backbone of traditional asset management, and BNY's participation suggests that the infrastructure layer for tokenized securities is maturing rapidly.
Tokenized funds represent investment vehicles whose ownership stakes are recorded and transferred on a blockchain, theoretically enabling faster settlement, greater transparency, and programmable compliance. For Baillie Gifford's clients, the practical implications — reduced friction in fund administration, potential around-the-clock liquidity windows — could gradually reshape how traditional fund products are distributed and managed over the coming years.
Whether this becomes a blueprint other legacy managers follow will depend heavily on regulatory clarity in both the UK and US markets, as well as investor appetite for on-chain fund structures. For now, Baillie Gifford's move marks one of the more high-profile examples of traditional asset management converging with public blockchain infrastructure. Continue reading at CoinDesk.
