The UK asset manager Baillie Gifford, in collaboration with BNY Mellon, has launched a tokenized fixed-income fund, further moving traditional fund structures onto public blockchains. The company disclosed that the product is structured as a UK-regulated Open-Ended Investment Company (OEIC), with Ethereum and Solana serving as the on-chain registration infrastructure.
The fund is available to qualified investors.
This fund, named the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund (BAGEY), is denominated in U.S. dollars and invests in publicly traded corporate bonds, employing an active management strategy with a short-duration portfolio. According to disclosures, the current yield is approximately 7%.
The fund will be available to qualified investors in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands, subject to compliance with local applicable laws, regulatory requirements, and distribution restrictions.
- Product Name: Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund
- Asset Type: Short-Duration Corporate Bonds in Public Markets
- Current disclosed yield: approximately 7%
Ethereum and Solana as underlying registries
The company disclosed that this fund is not a tokenized wrapper around a traditional fund, but rather is issued directly on-chain, with the blockchain itself serving as the register of holders. Under this design, investors hold the fund shares themselves, not a mapped representation wrapped in an additional layer.
Theo Golden, Head of Digital Assets and Tokenization at Baillie Gifford, said that the focus of on-chain funds is not merely about digital representation, but about directly handling ownership registration and investor rights on the blockchain.
BNY provides tokenization and wallet services.
In terms of responsibilities, BNY is responsible for the tokenization and wallet infrastructure of the fund, while NatWest Trustee and Depositary Services serves in the role of fund custodian and depositary. BNY stated that tokenization is moving from proof-of-concept to real-world application, and regulated fund structures are adapting to a more digital market environment.
This partnership demonstrates that RWA is expanding beyond highly liquid assets like government bonds and money market funds to include fixed-income products such as corporate bonds. For the public blockchain ecosystem, traditional asset managers directly using Ethereum and Solana as their underlying issuance and registration platforms signifies that on-chain financial infrastructure is increasingly being integrated into mainstream institutional product ecosystems.
Additional information: Baillie Gifford, headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, has been in operation for 118 years; this product utilizes a UK-regulated fund structure rather than a standalone on-chain SPV.