Centrifuge launches tokenized S&P 500 fund on Coinbase Base network
- Carmela Murray
- September 26, 2025
- Finance
- 0 Comments
First Licensed S&P 500 Fund Goes On-Chain
Centrifuge has launched what it’s calling the first licensed S&P 500 index fund on blockchain infrastructure. The Janus Henderson Anemoy S&P 500 Fund, known as SPXA, went live on Thursday on Base, which is Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network. This marks a significant step because it’s the first tokenized index fund that actually has licensing from S&P Dow Jones Indices themselves.
The fund essentially brings the entire S&P 500 basket – that’s about 500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies covering roughly 80% of the U.S. equity market – onto blockchain rails. What this means practically is that investors can trade this index fund around the clock, with full transparency into the holdings. That’s quite different from traditional markets that have specific trading hours.
Key Players and Infrastructure
FalconX, which is a digital asset brokerage, served as an anchor investor for this product. Meanwhile, Wormhole, the cross-chain messaging protocol, will handle future expansion to other blockchains. Janus Henderson, the London-based global asset manager with nearly $500 billion in assets under management, is acting as sub-investment manager. Centrifuge’s own asset management arm, Anemoy, oversees the fund operations.
This initiative fits into what seems to be a broader trend of bringing traditional financial instruments – things like bonds, funds, and equities – onto blockchain infrastructure. People often call these “real-world assets” or RWA. The thinking behind this movement is that tokenization could potentially offer operational efficiencies, faster settlement times, and that 24/7 trading capability.
Centrifuge’s Strategic Move
Centrifuge has been building infrastructure for tokenizing private credit and fixed income since 2017. They see SPXA as their entry point into equities, which is a tokenization trend that’s really gained momentum recently. Bhaji Illuminati, CEO of Centrifuge, mentioned in a statement that indices are actually the best way to bring stocks on-chain. He argued they’re simpler, collateral-ready, and can unlock liquidity in ways that individual securities just can’t match.
For S&P Dow Jones Indices, this offering represents what they see as a stepping stone to building the future of index-linked financial products. Cameron Drinkwater, chief product officer at S&P DJI, noted that traditional finance products are beginning to migrate to blockchain environments, which suggests this might be just the beginning of such initiatives.
I think what’s interesting here is the timing. The RWA tokenization space has been heating up, with blockchain-based specialists recently bringing $50 million to Apollo’s tokenized credit strategy. This S&P 500 fund launch feels like part of that broader momentum, though perhaps with a more mainstream appeal given the recognition of the S&P 500 index itself.
The real test will be how this performs in practice – whether the promised benefits of 24/7 trading and transparency actually materialize in ways that attract traditional investors who might be curious about blockchain but hesitant to dive into more speculative crypto assets. It’s a bridge between two worlds that have historically operated quite separately.
