F/m Investments Files First-Ever SEC Application to Tokenize $6B Treasury ETF

The Lead

F/m Investments, the asset manager behind the $6.3 billion US Treasury 3 Month Bill ETF (TBIL), filed a landmark exemptive application with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday. The filing seeks permission to record share ownership on a permissioned blockchain, marking the first time an ETF issuer has attempted to bring tokenized shares directly under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

If approved, the move would allow TBIL shares, currently trading at $49.98, to settle on-chain while retaining the same CUSIP and regulatory protections as traditional shares held in a brokerage account. This creates a single, fungible share class bridge between Wall Street’s DTCC infrastructure and digital asset ledgers.

The Receipt

The application explicitly requests relief to use a permissioned distributed ledger to track ownership of the fund’s shares. Unlike recent “digital liquidity funds” or stablecoins, F/m’s proposal keeps the tokenized assets strictly within the 85-year-old regulatory perimeter of the 1940 Act. This ensures independent board oversight, daily transparency, and third-party custody remain intact, features often absent in crypto-native RWA (Real World Asset) products.

“Tokenization is coming to securities markets whether we file this application or not. The question is whether it happens inside the regulatory framework investors have relied on for 85 years, or without that set of protections for investors.” , Alexander Morris, CEO of F/m Investments

Why It Matters: The ‘Single Share’ Breakthrough

Current RWA products, such as BlackRock’s BUIDL, typically exist as separate funds or digital twins that do not trade on public exchanges like the Nasdaq. F/m’s approach differs by unifying the liquidity.

By using a single share class for both digital and traditional holders, TBIL could theoretically be bought via a Charles Schwab account and settled into a custodial wallet (or vice versa) without converting the underlying asset. This eliminates the liquidity fragmentation that currently plagues the tokenized treasury market, which has grown to over $9.5 billion in 2025.

Institutional Context

This filing arrives just days after the NYSE announced plans for a similar tokenized trading infrastructure, signaling a coordinated institutional push to validate blockchain settlement rails. With $18 billion in total firm AUM, F/m is using its largest product (TBIL) as a battering ram to clear the regulatory path.

The SEC’s response will determine if the agency is ready to allow public blockchain infrastructure to coexist with traditional transfer agents. A denial would force issuers back to private, siloed ledgers; an approval effectively validates the blockchain as a federally recognized record-keeping tool.