Kraken Institutional partners with Centrifuge to bring tokenized assets into qualified custody

For tokenized assets to become part of institutional portfolios, they must fit within the custody, financing, and treasury workflows institutions already rely on to manage capital.

Today, Centrifuge and Kraken Institutional are taking an important step toward that future.

Kraken Institutional has partnered with Centrifuge to bring tokenized real-world assets into qualified custody, beginning with the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Fund (JAAA). Institutional clients can now hold tokenized fund interests in qualified custody while earning the underlying fund return and using those positions across borrowing, trading, and treasury strategies through a single custody relationship.

The launch marks the beginning of a broader partnership between Kraken Institutional and Centrifuge to expand institutional access to tokenized funds.

“Bringing traditional financial instruments into the Kraken ecosystem is a key priority as traditional and next-generation financial systems continue to converge,” said Gregory Barasia, Head of Asset Management at Kraken Institutional. “We look forward to expanding the range of traditional products available to institutions, giving them more ways to increase access within a trusted, regulated framework.”

A new access point for JAAA

JAAA provides exposure to a diversified portfolio of AAA-rated collateralized loan obligations, offering investment-grade floating-rate credit that complements traditional Treasury allocations.

Its significance extends beyond the underlying strategy. Earlier this month, Ethena selected JAAA as the first real-world asset backing USDe, recognizing its combination of liquidity, credit quality, and resilient yield profile. Now, Kraken Institutional is making JAAA the first tokenized fund available through qualified custody.

Together, these milestones show how institutional credit is finding new applications across digital capital markets. Rather than existing solely as investment products, tokenized funds are becoming assets that can support collateral, treasury, and liquidity strategies while continuing to deliver their underlying investment exposure.

“Janus Henderson is committed to being the premier provider of institutional-quality tokenized products in DeFi,” said Nick Cherney, Head of Innovation at Janus Henderson. “That vision can only be realized alongside partners like Kraken and Centrifuge, who are similarly committed to continuing to innovate and lead as financial services increasingly move onchain.”

Expanding institutional access

The Kraken partnership reflects Centrifuge’s broader strategy to make regulated tokenized funds available wherever institutions manage capital.

As tokenized markets mature, institutions expect assets to be accessible through the same trusted platforms they use to custody assets, manage liquidity, and execute investment strategies. Qualified custody is an important step toward that vision, extending access to tokenized funds while preserving the operational standards institutional investors expect.

“Tokenization only matters if assets can be put to work,” said Bhaji Illuminati, CEO of Centrifuge. “Working with Kraken Institutional brings tokenized funds into one of the industry’s leading institutional platforms, allowing investors to hold, finance, and deploy these assets within familiar institutional workflows. That’s an important milestone for bringing real-world assets into mainstream capital markets.”

As institutional adoption grows, the focus will shift from tokenizing individual assets to building the infrastructure that allows them to move efficiently across the financial system. That is the opportunity Centrifuge continues to build toward: connecting regulated investment products with the infrastructure, distribution, and utility required for tokenized capital markets to operate at institutional scale.

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