Baillie Gifford launches a regulated bond fund on Ethereum and Solana blockchains

Baillie Gifford, the 118-year-old UK asset manager, has launched a tokenized bond fund on Ethereum and Solana. The Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund – or BAGEY – is live and paying roughly 7% to eligible investors, according to a report from CoinDesk on June 22.

BNY is providing the tokenization and wallet infrastructure. NatWest Trustee and Depositary Services serves as the fund’s depositary. The dollar-denominated fund holds a portfolio of short-term public corporate bonds, actively managed by Baillie Gifford.

This isn’t a traditional fund with a digital token slapped on top. Theo Golden, Baillie Gifford’s head of digital assets and tokenization, put it clearly: BAGEY is “not a token wrapped around a fund, but a fund issued on-chain.” The blockchain itself is the official book of record. Investors hold the fund directly, with a direct claim on the underlying assets.

The structure is a UK-regulated open-ended investment company, or OEIC. Eligibility is limited to investors in the UK, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands, subject to local sales restrictions.

For the crypto market, the launch is a concrete example of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization moving from concept to a regulated fund structure. Ethereum and Solana, the two blockchains chosen for issuance, are now hosting an institutional-grade bond product. That represents a step change – these public networks are being used as infrastructure for a directly issued fund, not just a representation on a private ledger.

What to watch next: whether other large asset managers follow Baillie Gifford’s lead, and how the existing regulatory frameworks in the UK and Switzerland adapt to more on-chain fund structures. The fund’s yield and redemption flows will also test whether institutional investors trust a public blockchain as the primary record for a regulated product.