Oct 27, 2026, 10:21 a.m. EDT
2 min read
Summary
- Janus Henderson and Centrifuge released JQQQ, an issuer-sponsored onchain fund hosted on the Stellar network that follows the Nasdaq-100 Index.
- This vehicle contrasts with independent stock tokens because Janus Henderson oversees and manages the fund, Centrifuge supplies the underlying blockchain technology, and Nasdaq provides the official index license.
- The debut broadens traditional finance’s tokenization movement toward equity market instruments while pushing Janus Henderson’s digital asset ecosystem past the $1 billion threshold.
London-based investment firm Janus Henderson, which manages roughly $500 billion, is bringing a premier Wall Street equity benchmark onto distributed ledger networks through an issuer-backed product. This release arrives amid rising discussions regarding who holds authorization to tokenize legacy financial securities.
The asset manager partnered with tokenization network Centrifuge to roll out JQQQ, a fund tracking the Nasdaq-100 Index, which includes prominent technology titans like Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft. The two organizations announced on Tuesday that the fund is deployed on the Stellar blockchain.
JQQQ follows the previous year’s introduction of a comparable onchain index offering known as the Janus Henderson Anemoy S&P 500 Fund (SPXA), which represented the inaugural tokenized index fund officially authorized by S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Janus Henderson noted that its blockchain-native investment platform now accounts for upwards of $1 billion across United States Treasuries, structured credit, and equities.
This rollout signifies another milestone in the financial sector’s drive to migrate conventional investments onto distributed networks, expanding past government debt, money market instruments, and private credit into stock market offerings. It additionally emphasizes an expanding division between funds created directly onchain by their managers versus third-party tokens generated independently without corporate participation.
Issuer-backed versus third-party tokens
JQQQ adheres to the issuer-sponsored structure. Janus Henderson controls and operates the fund, Centrifuge furnishes the blockchain architecture, and Nasdaq licenses the targeted index.
This setup differs from third-party equity tokens, which might depend on shares maintained in custody or take the form of separate derivatives mirroring share valuations. Participants in those alternative vehicles do not necessarily possess the underlying equities or secure traditional shareholder privileges.
This distinction has grown pivotal within broader discussions surrounding asset tokenization initiatives. Most recently, 22 corporations contested proposed blockchain-based trading for their equities on the OKX-ICE platform, intensifying arguments over whether corporate issuers ought to grant permission before their shares are tokenized.
Sean Wasserman, who serves as head of index product management at Nasdaq, stated that as investors investigate alternative pathways to market access through digital infrastructure, interest keeps expanding for exposure to recognized, transparent benchmarks.
The investment vehicle also demonstrates how tokenization is progressing beyond mere digital representations of current financial instruments toward assets engineered specifically for blockchain environments from inception.
Such funds might eventually enable participants to leverage their holdings as collateral for borrowing or transfer them seamlessly across decentralized financial platforms, subject to compliance frameworks and technical compatibility.
Anil Sood, chief strategy and growth officer at Centrifuge, remarked that tokenization grows substantially more impactful when the capital investors wish to hold can also function as fundamental building blocks for an onchain financial architecture.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/10/27/nasdaq-100-comes-onchain-as-janus-henderson-and-centrifuge-launch-first-licensed-fund.
