Nasdaq-100 comes onchain as Janus Henderson and Centrifuge launch first licensed fund

Janus Henderson, a $500 billion asset manager based in London, is introducing an issuer-sponsored fund on Stellar.

This new offering, JQQQ, tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index and is a departure from third-party stock tokens.

The firm partnered with tokenization platform Centrifuge for this launch. Nasdaq also licenses the index for tracking purposes.

JQQQ is issued on the Stellar XLM$0.1853 blockchain, the companies stated on Tuesday.

This development expands Wall Street's tokenization efforts into stock-market products. Janus Henderson's onchain investment platform now encompasses over $1 billion in assets, including Treasuries, structured credit, and equities.

The model employed here differs from third-party stock tokens, where investors may not own the underlying shares or receive shareholder rights.

Sean Wasserman, head of index product management at Nasdaq, commented, “As investors explore new ways to access markets through digital infrastructure, demand continues to grow for exposure to established, transparent benchmarks.”

Anil Sood, chief strategy and growth officer at Centrifuge, stated, “Tokenization becomes much more powerful when the assets investors want to own can also become building blocks for an onchain financial system.”