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BNP Paribas Brings Money Market Fund to Ethereum

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BNP Paribas Brings Money Market Fund to Ethereum

BNP Paribas has launched a tokenized share class of a French-domiciled money market fund on the public Ethereum blockchain. The firm is the largest bank in Europe, with over $3 trillion in assets.

This marks another significant step in traditional finance’s gradual migration to distributed ledger technology.

Ethereum RWA Market Tops $15 Billion as BNP Paribas Joins Tokenization Push

The pilot project, executed through the bank’s AssetFoundry platform, allows BNP Paribas to test the integration of public blockchains into heavily regulated fund structures.

However, the bank is maintaining strict control over the digital assets.

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The tokenized shares utilize a permissioned access model, meaning holdings and transfers are cryptographically restricted to a whitelist of authorized participants who meet stringent compliance standards.

“The initiative was conducted as a one‑off, limited intra‑group experiment, enabling BNP Paribas to test new end‑to‑end processes, from issuance and transfer agency to tokenisation and public blockchain connectivity, within a controlled and regulated framework,” the bank explained.

This walled-garden approach reflects a growing consensus among institutional asset managers. They clearly want to utilize the underlying settlement infrastructure of public networks like Ethereum.

However, these firms still demand the strict access controls inherent to traditional financial systems.

Notably, the initiative follows a previous BNP Paribas pilot that utilized a private blockchain in Luxembourg. This pivot signals a cautious institutional shift toward public networks to capture broader future interoperability.

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Money market funds have emerged as the primary testing ground for Wall Street’s blockchain ambitions. For institutional investors, tokenizing these funds offers a regulated, yield-bearing alternative to fiat-backed stablecoins.

Furthermore, traditional fund processing relies on slow, batch-based settlement systems that can trap capital. Tokenization introduces the possibility of atomic, nearly instantaneous settlement, vastly improving capital efficiency.

“This second issuance of tokenized money market funds, this time using public blockchain infrastructure, supports our ongoing efforts to explore how tokenization can contribute to greater operational efficiency and security within a regulated framework,” Edouard Legrand, chief digital and data officer at BNP Paribas Asset Management, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, BNP Paribas joins a crowded field of incumbent heavyweights, including BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Fidelity Investments, all of which have deployed tokenized money market funds on Ethereum.

According to Token Terminal data, Ethereum currently dominates the tokenized asset market, leading in stablecoins, commodities, and tokenized funds.

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The total market capitalization of real-world assets on the Ethereum ecosystem, excluding stablecoins, recently surpassed $15 billion, up roughly 200% year over year.

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Crypto World

Drift Seeks Contact With The Hacker After $280M Exploit

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Drift Seeks Contact With The Hacker After $280M Exploit

Drift Protocol, a Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX), said Friday it had opened onchain contact with wallets tied to funds stolen in the exploit that outside firms have estimated at roughly $280 million to $286 million.

Drift said on X that it had initiated onchain contact with wallets holding the stolen Ether (ETH), seeking to open a line of communication.

The team sent onchain messages from its Ethereum address (0x0934faC) to four wallets linked to the exploiter at the time of publication, urging the attacker to reach out via Blockscan chat. “We are ready to speak,” Drift said.

Onchain messaging has become a common tactic in exploit response, allowing protocols to communicate directly with attackers while preserving anonymity. In past cases, such as the Euler Finance hack, similar outreach led to the partial recovery of funds.

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Drift’s onchain message to the Drift Exploiter on Friday. Source: Etherscan

Anonymous sender tries to pressure the attacker

Drift’s communication came hours after an unknown sender using the ENS name readnow.eth also reached out to wallets linked to the attacker on Thursday via onchain messages.

The sender claimed to know the identities behind the attack and demanded a payment of 1,000 ETH in exchange for withholding information.

Source: Etherscan

The claims could not be independently verified and may represent an attempt to mislead or pressure the wallet holder. The incident highlights how, alongside official communications, unverified messages can circulate onchain after crypto exploits.

Solana fallout keeps spreading

According to SolanaFloor, Drift’s exploit has so far affected at least 20 Solana protocols, including the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Gauntlet, which was estimated to be impacted to the scale of $6.4 million.

Blockchain security platform Cyvers said the impact was still expanding as of Friday morning, with no funds being recovered 48 hours past the attack.

Cyvers said that the attack was likely a “weeks-long, staged operation,” noting that the attacker set up durable nonces, a Solana feature allowing users to pre-sign transactions for future execution, days before the exploit.

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Related: Crypto hackers steal $169M from 34 DeFi protocols in Q1: DefiLlama

“This closely mirrors the Bybit hack, different technique, same root issue: signers unknowingly approving malicious transactions,” Cyvers added.

Some industry observers, including Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet, suggested the exploit may involve North Korea-linked actors, though details remain unconfirmed.

Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum secure cryptography will even work

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