The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a special request from asset manager WisdomTree to allow shares of its Treasury Money Market Digital Fund to trade at $1 with a dealer on an intraday basis, regardless of the fund’s end-of-day net asset value.
Until now, investors in the fund, which trades under the ticker WTGXX, have had to trade at the end of the day at the fund’s NAV, as is standard for traditional mutual funds. The new structure allows trades to take place around the clock through a broker-dealer acting as principal, with immediate settlement on blockchain rails.
WisdomTree said the approval required exemption from the SEC and regulatory approval from FINRA to expand the operations of its broker-dealer subsidiary. Under the new model, trades are made against the dealer’s holdings rather than directly with the fund, enabling 24/7 liquidity while keeping the fund’s primary structure intact.
“This is a true innovation and improvement of the investor experience, and it shows how blockchain can act as a new set of rails for the capital markets,” Will Peck, WisdomTree’s head of digital assets, said in a statement on Tuesday.
WisdomTree also introduced rolling dividend accrual for the fund, distributing interest based on how long each wallet held shares during the day. The feature tracks wallet activity on the chain and ensures that even transfers in the middle of the day do not miss a part of the proceeds.
The firm plans to make the functionality available to institutions first through its Connect platform, with potential retail access later through its Prime app.
The change marks a step in the broader push to tokenize parts of the capital markets. Several large banks and asset managers have piloted blockchain-based systems for issuing and settling traditional assets with the aim of reducing settlement times and reducing operational friction. Tokenization refers to representing financial instruments as digital tokens on a blockchain, allowing ownership to move in near real time.
Money market funds backed by US Treasuries have become an important test case. More than $10 billion in tokenized US Treasuries are now in circulation, according to data provider rwa.xyz.
Leading the charge is BlackRock and Securitize’s BUIDL fund, which has over $2 billion in total value locked, a metric that reflects the dollar value of assets committed to the product on the chain. Other offerings include products from stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) and Ondo Finance.
With the SEC’s approval, WisdomTree joins a growing group of companies seeking to bring traditional money management tools into the blockchain infrastructure while staying within the existing regulatory framework.
