TL;DR
Federated Hermes and Prometheum plan to launch tokenized fund shares through regulated U.S. brokerage infrastructure, with the first product expected in Q1 2027.
Prometheum will provide issuance, distribution, custody, clearing and settlement through its SEC-registered, FINRA-member broker-dealer network, while Federated Hermes supplies investment-management expertise.
The firms have not yet identified the first fund or blockchain, so the project remains prospective despite directly targeting mainstream broker-dealers, RIAs and existing investment accounts.
Federated Hermes is partnering with Prometheum to bring tokenized investment funds into regulated U.S. brokerage infrastructure, with the first product expected in Q1 2027. In the official announcement , the firms said Prometheum’s SEC-registered, FINRA-member broker-dealer network will support issuance, distribution, custody, clearing and settlement. The partnership is designed to place tokenized fund shares inside familiar brokerage and advisor channels rather than limiting them to crypto-native platforms. Federated Hermes, which manages $911.6 billion, adds the asset-management side of the structure while real-world asset tokenization provides the broader market context.
Regulated Brokerage Infrastructure Moves Closer to Onchain Funds
Under the planned model, Federated Hermes will contribute investment-management expertise and tokenized products, while ProFinancial will support distribution. Prometheum Capital will provide custody, clearing and settlement, and make the products available to introducing broker-dealers through its correspondent clearing platform. Prometheum’s network also includes an alternative trading system and digital transfer-agent infrastructure. The structure aims to connect onchain securities with regulated intermediaries already serving U.S. investors, rather than requiring advisors or broker-dealers to build a separate crypto stack. That approach resembles other efforts to connect tokenized funds with traditional fund-distribution infrastructure .
The announcement does not identify the first fund or specify which blockchain will host its shares. It instead sets a target of bringing the initial tokenized product to market during the first quarter of 2027. Kevin Barr, Federated Hermes’ Director of Digital Assets, said broker-dealer and RIA clients want onchain access to traditional investments, while Prometheum co-CEO Aaron Kaplan described the partnership as a blueprint for digital-securities issuance and distribution. The launch therefore remains prospective, with product details, implementation and investor uptake still to be demonstrated. The plan enters a market where institutional funds are increasingly moving onchain .
Federated Hermes said the collaboration is intended to preserve the operational and fiduciary rigor used across its fund lineup while adding blockchain-based distribution. Prometheum, meanwhile, is positioning its regulated brokerage stack as the bridge between tokenized securities and investment accounts. The significance lies less in creating a new crypto-native fund category than in attempting to distribute blockchain-recorded fund interests through the same broker-dealers and advisors that handle investments. That distinction places the project alongside regulated tokenized-securities infrastructure built to integrate issuance and settlement without removing securities-law intermediaries. If the firms meet their timeline, Q1 2027 will provide the first practical test of that model.
