The Investment Company Institute published its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report Thursday, which shows money market mutual fund assets jumping for the third week in a row (up $107.4 billion) to a record $6.242 trillion. Assets have risen in 14 of the last 18 weeks, increasing by $264.4 billion (or 4.4%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $355 billion, or 7.5%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 8/21/24), with Institutional MMFs up $113 billion, or 3.7% and Retail MMFs up $242 billion, or 14.4%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $673 billion, or 12.1%, with Retail MMFs up by $448 billion (21.5%) and Inst MMFs rising by $226 billion (6.5%). (Note: Please join us for European Money Fund Symposium, which will be held Sept. 19-20, 2024 in London, England!)
The weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $24.89 billion to $6.24 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 21, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $19.53 billion and prime funds increased by $3.02 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $2.34 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs rising $3.5 billion and Retail MMFs rising $21.5 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $5.058 trillion (81.0% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $1.054 trillion (16.9%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $130.5 billion (2.1%).
ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $21.44 billion to $2.53 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $6.59 billion to $1.60 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $12.72 billion to $809.09 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $2.13 billion to $118.88 billion." Retail assets account for over a third of total assets, or 40.6%, and Government Retail assets make up 63.4% of all Retail MMFs.
They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $3.45 billion to $3.71 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $12.94 billion to $3.45 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $9.70 billion to $244.44 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $214 million to $11.59 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 59.4% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 93.1% of all institutional MMF totals.
According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets have risen by $75.6 billion in August (through 8/21) to $6.581 trillion. They hit a record $6.586 trillion on 8/20 but have since fallen. Assets rose by $16.6 billion in July, $15.7 billion in June and $91.4 billion in May, but they fell $15.8 billion in April and $68.8 billion in March. They rose $72.1 billion in February, $93.9 billion in January, $32.7 billion in December and $226.4 billion in November. MMF totals fell by $31.9 billion in October. They rose $93.9 billion in September and $98.3 billion in August. Note that ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data, so they're over $400 billion lower than Crane's asset series.
In other news, Coindesk published an article titled, "Avalanche Becomes Latest Blockchain to Support Franklin Templeton's Tokenized Money Market Fund," which tells us, "Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX) has expanded its availability to the Avalanche network in a bid to expand the fund's base. 'I think the Avalanche ecosystem represents a super robust network that allows us to deliver high quality attributes and characteristics to our customers,' Roger Bayston, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton told CoinDesk.... Avalanche is the latest blockchain in Franklin's effort to expand access to the fund."
They quote Ava Labs' Morgan Krupetsky, "For us, why we're very excited to have Franklin Templeton's Benji app and platform deployed on Avalanche is really twofold. On the one hand, the money market funds contract in and of itself and potentially as a payment mechanism represents a foundational and fundamental piece to a broader tokenized asset ecosystem and capabilities. But two, being able to ... deliver and bring to bear real world utilities and use cases for users ... they don't have today."
The release adds, "FOBXX launched in 2021 and became the first money market fund to use a public blockchain to record transactions and ownership. Three years later, it currently stands at a $420 million market cap."
Finally, a press release entitled, "Prometheum Capital Adds Two New Digital Asset Securities to Custodial Platform" states, "Prometheum Ember Capital LLC, a subsidiary of Prometheum Inc., announced today the addition of digital asset securities ('DAS') Uniswap (UNI) and Arbitrum (ARB) to its custodial platform."
They write, "Institutional and corporate clients in the U.S. will be able to custody Ethereum's ether (ETH) token, along with the above digital assets, through Prometheum Capital, a FINRA member firm and SEC-registered special purpose broker-dealer for digital assets.... Prometheum Capital uses blockchain technology for recording on chain ownership of digital assets, eliminating the need for traditional intermediaries such as transfer agents."
The release adds, "Prometheum Capital plans to launch its custodial services to institutional investors in Q3 2024. Prometheum Capital will continue to expand its digital asset offerings for custody, and in the future trading, to support digital assets including debt, equities, ETFs, mutual funds, options, money market funds, and other investment contract products that are issued and transferred on a blockchain."
For more, see these Crane Data News articles: "FT on MMF Inflows Ahead of Rate Cuts; Bloomberg on Stablecoins, T-Bills" (8/22/24), "Franklin MF Adds Arbitrum Blockchain" (8/12/24), "Fidelity Intl Tokenizes MF, Paxos" (6/14/24), "J.P. Morgan on Weekly Holdings, Treasury Repo Clearing; Fitch; OnChain" (5/2/24), "European Money Fund Symposium London, Sept. 19-20; Tokenized MMFs" (4/25/24), "CoinDesk on Tether Stablecoin; Paxos" (2/5/24), "Forbes: SEC Targets PayPal Stablecoin" (11/13/23), "J.P. Morgan on Stablecoin Shrinkage, Risks; Bloomberg, WSJ and NY Fed" (9/28/23), "CNBC on PayPal, Paxos' Stablecoin" (8/10/23) and "NY Fed on 'Runs on Stablecoins'" (7/19/23).
