What a native tokenised fund actually changes

August 2026

Most "tokenised funds" are wrappers. The fund runs exactly as it always did, a transfer agent still keeps the register, and a token gets issued 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.

In a native fund 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.

The time it took is the point. Issuing a token as a fund unit has been technically easy for years. The hard part was the law: who acts as depositary, what counts as the legal record of ownership, and how redemptions work when the register is a public blockchain. Most projects never get through those questions.

I led Baillie Gifford's first work on digital assets and built the original case, from the valuation model through the FCA engagement and the risk, legal and compliance process. The objection was reputational risk and nobody wanting to put their name on a new decision, so most of the job was making that decision safe to take.

If you run an asset manager you can tokenise a fund. The question is whether a wrapper buys you anything, or whether going native is worth the regulatory work, and that depends on the asset and who is buying it.

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