HSBC, Franklin Templeton, Tradeweb and Fireblocks last week demonstrated a tokenized treasury solution for Uber on the Canton Network. Using HSBC tokenized deposits, Uber purchased Franklin Templeton’s Benji tokenized money market fund (MMF) through Tradeweb with delivery versus payment settlement, then liquidated a portion over a weekend.
Tradeweb’s involvement is notable. In 2024 the firm acquired Institutional Cash Distributors (ICD), the portal corporate treasurers already use to manage money market fund investments. That makes it a natural venue for extending existing workflows onto tokenized rails.
Uber is not alone in exploring this territory. Ant International has been sweeping corporate cash into tokenized MMFs for months using at least three funds across different chains, currencies and bank partners. Hong Kong’s SFC approved 24/7 secondary trading of tokenized MMFs on October 26.
The goal in each case is the same. Let a corporate treasurer sit in yield bearing MMFs until the moment a payment goes out, including on weekends. The interesting question is who provides that liquidity when the fund manager’s dealing window is shut. Uber demonstrates one of several emerging routes, and the market is likely to use more than one.
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Ways to source weekend liquidity
The most direct route is a market maker willing to buy fund units around the clock. This appears to be the mechanism behind the Uber weekend liquidation, although the details were not shared. Hong Kong has formalized the approach through licensed exchanges, approving 24/7 trading of ChinaAMC’s HKD and USD tokenized MMFs on PantherTrade. For constant NAV funds such as Franklin Templeton’s Benji, the dealer carries almost no price risk. For variable NAV funds such as ChinaAMC’s Hong Kong products, spreads may be wider.
A second approach gives fund holders a permanent counterparty. Circle created this category in 2024 when it began buying BlackRock’s BUIDL tokens 24/7, enabling holders to exit via USDC at any hour. That makes sense given BlackRock manages most of USDC’s reserves. Ondo Finance expanded the model through its Nexus offering, launched in early 2025, which accepts tokens from BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, Wellington Management and FundBridge Capital. If a holder of any of those funds wants out on a Saturday, Ondo buys the units and parks them as collateral for its own fund.
A newer variant wraps the whole process into a cash sweep. Multiliquid, which launched this week, offers corporate treasurers real time access to yields through an SPV that holds the tokenized MMFs. The investor never holds fund units directly but owns a claim on the vehicle. This is closer to a traditional bank sweep product than a redemption facility, but the corporate is exposed to the risks of the SPV’s structure and sponsor rather than just the fund manager.
Buybacks and borrowing
A third approach would be the fund issuer itself standing ready to redeem around the clock. WisdomTree has come closest, with SEC exemptive relief granted in February allowing its affiliated broker-dealer to buy and sell shares of its WTGXX fund from inventory at a fixed $1.00, settling in USDC. The dealer carries the inventory rather than the fund. A more direct version would require the fund to hold enough cash to cover weekend redemptions while still earning yield on it, which is where stablecoins that share yield with distributors, such as OpenUSD, founded by Stripe’s Bridge, and the Paxos Global Dollar could play a role. But many of these funds are not yet permitted to hold stablecoins.
Finally, a corporate could avoid selling altogether and borrow against tokenized MMF units as collateral, repaying when markets reopen. Banks may prefer this route because it keeps the deposit relationship intact and earns a lending spread rather than a few basis points of fund distribution fee. DeFi is another potential avenue, although corporate treasurers may be wary of risks.
Chains and currencies
There is a less visible issue. The Uber pilot locked every component onto Canton, where Tradeweb, Benji, the HSBC deposit token and the DvP settlement all sit. Most of Benji’s deployments are not on Canton, with Stellar as its most popular chain. Ant International’s Amundi arrangement and Hong Kong’s secondary trading on PantherTrade both run on Ethereum. This means liquidity will fragment by venue and chain, not just by fund.
Currencies add another dimension. Dollar liquidity is crowded, with multiple fund managers chasing the same corporate treasury flows. Ant International’s most recent move points elsewhere. It used cross border e-CNY to fund a subscription to an RMB digital money market fund from ChinaAMC Hong Kong, signaling where the next build out happens.
Who becomes the distributor?
Distribution is the other prize. Tradeweb reaches large corporate treasurers through ICD. Ant International may be positioning for the small to medium end. Amundi said it is working with Ant to explore launching its short term money market fund on Whale, Ant’s blockchain based treasury platform that has integrated with 20 different tokenized deposit solutions. Amundi added that the partners aim to co-develop solutions “that can better serve treasurers worldwide”. Ant describes Whale as an internal platform, but its Bettr offering for SMEs already advertises blockchain based transfers across countries, currencies and chains, which looks a lot like Whale with a customer facing label.
The asset managers themselves are split on which cash leg will dominate. Asked in a Franklin Templeton video to classify stablecoins as transformative, interesting or overhyped, Sandy Kaul, Head of Innovation, chose overhyped. “I think that as tokenized deposits become more available it’s going to be hard for stablecoins to keep their market share,” she said. By contrast, WisdomTree has issued its own stablecoin. Always on treasury liquidity is coming. The open questions are which plumbing carries it and who earns the spread.
