Franklin Templeton, a US-based asset manager, has expanded its off-exchange collateral program to crypto exchange Bybit.

The partnership lets Bybit users pledge shares in Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market funds to borrow the stablecoins USDT or USDC for trading, while the underlying assets remain with custody platform ByCustody.

Franklin Templeton said the pledged shares represent about US$686 million in net assets. Their value is mirrored in Bybit’s trading environment, allowing users to trade without transferring the underlying holdings onto the exchange.

The company already offers similar arrangements on Binance and OKX.

The expansion comes as tokenized Treasury products have surpassed US$14.6 billion and see wider use as collateral for crypto trades.

Off-exchange setups are often promoted as a way to reduce counterparty risk by letting institutions trade without pre-funding exchange wallets.

Publicly available information did not clarify ByCustody’s regulatory status or its corporate relationship with Bybit, although Bybit said it holds provisional approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

🔗 Source: CoinDesk

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