What a native tokenised fund actually changes

June 2026

Most "tokenised funds" are theatre. The fund runs exactly as it always did, a transfer agent still keeps the register, and a token gets bolted on top to stand for a holding. The token points at the real thing. The plumbing underneath is untouched. You've added a layer and removed nothing.

A native fund is the real version. The token is the holding. Ownership lives on the chain, the chain is the legal record, and the register and the people who maintain it simply disappear. That's the bit that matters, because that's where the cost and the settlement delay sit.

So what did Baillie Gifford actually do? In June 2026 it launched BAGEY with BNY. Short-dated corporate bonds, issued natively on Ethereum and Solana, FCA-approved, a UK OEIC, roughly 7% yield, dealt daily, professional investors only. The first fully native fund regulated in the UK. It sat in the FCA's sandbox for the best part of a year and pulled in more than ten teams inside the regulator.

That timeline is the whole story. Issuing a token as a fund unit has been technically trivial for years. The hard part was never the tech. It was the law. Who's the depositary? What counts as the legal record of ownership? How do redemptions work when the register is a public blockchain? Answer those and you've got a fund. Most projects never do, and quietly die.

I led Baillie Gifford's first work on digital assets and built the original case: the valuation model, the FCA engagement, the slow walk through risk, legal and compliance. The objection was almost never the technology. It was reputational risk, and nobody wanting to put their name on a new decision. Most of the job was making that decision safe to take. Dull, and the actual work.

So if you run an asset manager: yes, you can tokenise a fund. The real question is whether a wrapper buys you anything, or whether going native is worth the regulatory slog. Usually that turns on the asset and who's buying it. Worth settling before anyone touches a keyboard.

I advise asset managers and financial firms on tokenisation, digital assets and the FCA route. me@yussefrobinson.uk