Janus Henderson, the London‑based asset manager overseeing roughly $500 billion, launched a tokenized fund tracking the Nasdaq‑100 on the Stellar blockchain Tuesday, built with tokenization platform Centrifuge under a licensing deal with Nasdaq.
The fund, called JQQQ, follows a similar product from last year, the Janus Henderson Anemoy S&P 500 Fund (SPXA), which was the first tokenized index fund licensed by S&P Dow Jones Indices. Janus Henderson says its on‑chain platform now holds more than $1 billion across Treasuries, structured credit and equities.
The wrapper is the point
JQQQ uses what the industry calls the issuer‑sponsored model. Janus Henderson issues and manages the fund, Centrifuge runs the blockchain infrastructure, and Nasdaq licenses the index. That structure is a direct answer to the fight over third‑party stock tokens, where investors often don't own the underlying shares or receive shareholder rights.
That fight is getting louder. CoinDesk reports that 22 companies recently objected to plans for blockchain‑based trading of their shares on the OKX‑ICE venue. Whether issuers get a say when their stocks are tokenized is becoming the central question in this space, and JQQQ is what the "yes" camp looks like.
I think this matters more than the tech. Anyone can mint a token that tracks a price. Getting Nasdaq to license the index and a $500 billion manager to stand behind the product is the hard part, and it's where the moat is.
What you actually own
Some skepticism is warranted on the product itself. Per CoinTelegraph, citing the Wall Street Journal, JQQQ is structured as a segregated portfolio of a British Virgin Islands investment company, offers indirect exposure to the Nasdaq‑100 rather than ownership of the underlying stocks, and targets eligible professional investors outside the US with a $100,000 minimum.
Retail isn't invited, Americans aren't invited, and what you hold is a claim on a BVI fund that tracks an index. The pitch is that these tokens could eventually be posted as collateral or moved between on‑chain applications. Centrifuge's chief strategy and growth officer Anil Sood said tokenization becomes "much more powerful" when assets become "building blocks for an on‑chain financial system." That future is subject to regulatory requirements and platform support.
Stellar keeps winning the business, not the token
For Stellar, this is another institutional logo. The network ranks fourth among blockchains by distributed real‑world asset value at roughly $3.8 billion, behind Ethereum, BNB Chain and Solana, according to RWA.xyz data cited by CoinTelegraph. It already hosts tokenized assets from Franklin Templeton, Ondo and Spiko, and the DTCC plans to connect its tokenization service to the network, with assets potentially including Treasuries, major index ETFs and Russell 1000 stocks expected in the first half of 2027.
And yet XLM, Stellar's native token, is down about 16 % year‑to‑date, trading near $0.17 on Tuesday per CoinGecko. The chain keeps landing the deals and the token keeps sliding. If you're betting on tokenization by buying the native asset, the market is telling you the value accrues elsewhere.
Nasdaq, meanwhile, is licensing the Nasdaq‑100 to more managers, adding BlackRock and State Street in April alongside its longstanding partner Invesco, whose QQQ Trust sits at a $499 billion market cap. The index is the toll booth. Everyone else is paying to cross.
Sources
- CoinDesk: Nasdaq‑100 comes on‑chain as Janus Henderson and Centrifuge launch first licensed fund
- CoinTelegraph: Janus Henderson, Centrifuge launch tokenized Nasdaq‑100 fund on Stellar