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

Janus Henderson, a London-based asset manager overseeing roughly $500 billion, is bringing one of Wall Street’s best-known stock indexes onto blockchain rails through an issuer-sponsored fund. The launch comes amid an escalating debate over who gets to tokenize traditional securities.

The firm teamed up with tokenization platform Centrifuge to launch JQQQ, a fund tracking the Nasdaq-100 Index, home to tech giants including Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft. The fund is issued on the Stellar XLM $0.1853 blockchain, the companies said Tuesday.

JQQQ follows the introduction of a similar onchain index fund product last year, the Janus Henderson Anemoy S&P 500 Fund (SPXA), which was the first tokenized index fund licensed by the S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Janus Henderson said its onchain investment platform now includes more than $1 billion across Treasuries, structured credit and equities.

The launch marks another step in Wall Street’s push to bring traditional investments onchain, expanding beyond U.S. Treasuries, money market funds and private credit into stock-market products. It also highlights a growing divide between funds issued onchain by their managers and third-party tokens created without the underlying companies’ involvement.

JQQQ follows the issuer-sponsored model. Janus Henderson issues and manages the fund, Centrifuge provides the blockchain infrastructure and Nasdaq licenses the index to track.

That differs from third-party stock tokens, which may be backed by shares held in custody or structured as separate instruments tracking stock prices. Investors in those products don't necessarily own the underlying shares or receive shareholder rights.

The distinction has become central in the debate around tokenization efforts . Most recently, 22 companies objected to plans for blockchain-based trading of their shares on the OKX-ICE venue, adding to a debate over whether issuers should have a say when their stocks are tokenized.

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

The fund also shows how tokenization is moving beyond digital versions of existing investments toward products built to operate on blockchains from the start.

Such funds could eventually allow investors to use their holdings as collateral for loans or move them between blockchain-based financial applications, subject to regulatory requirements and platform support.

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