Amundi, Europe's largest asset manager with over €2.3 trillion in assets under management, has recently launched its first on-chain mutual fund, SAFO. The fund is built on Chainlink's infrastructure and developed in partnership with regulated digital asset firm Spiko. This marks Amundi's transition from issuing cryptocurrency-themed ETFs to the native issuance of its core financial products on the blockchain.
SAFO Fund Explained
SAFO (Stable Asset Fund On-chain) primarily invests in short-term government bonds and high-quality money market instruments, with its underlying asset class leaning towards conservative. The innovation of this fund lies not in its holdings, but in its operational mechanics and accessibility.
SAFO offers 24/7 transferability and near-instantaneous settlement, breaking free from the constraints of traditional mutual fund operations limited by banking hours. Institutional clients can subscribe or redeem shares directly on-chain using stablecoins, bypassing multiple intermediaries in the traditional financial system.
The fund is launched under the regulatory framework of the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF), fully complying with EU financial standards. Its regulatory compliance is built into the fund's structure, rather than being an afterthought.
Conservative underlying assets, round-the-clock operational capabilities, direct on-chain access, and compliance collectively form the key elements that institutional investors seek before scaling investments in tokenized fund products.
Chainlink's Role in Infrastructure
Chainlink plays two critical roles within SAFO. Firstly, its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) is responsible for secure data feeds and cross-chain compatibility, ensuring the fund can operate across different blockchain environments while avoiding additional bridging risks. It is this infrastructure layer that makes 24/7 transferability operationally feasible, rather than merely theoretical.
Secondly, Chainlink's Proof of Reserve functionality allows investors to verify the fund's underlying collateral on-chain in real-time, eliminating the need for periodic third-party audits. For institutional investors accustomed to receiving fund component reports monthly or quarterly, real-time verifiable reserves offer a significant upgrade in transparency and remove the need for trust in counterparties inherent in traditional fund structures.
Positioning in the Institutional Wave
The launch of SAFO is not an isolated event. Prior to this, BlackRock expanded its BUIDL fund on March 15th, and Fidelity announced a similar standing treasury fund on March 17th. Amundi's release on March 19th means that within a span of just five days, three major institutional asset managers have entered the tokenized government bond infrastructure space.
Driven by high interest rates and institutional demand for low-risk, yield-generating digital assets, the tokenized government bond market has surpassed $1.8 billion as of March 2026, according to industry estimates. High interest rates make short-term government bonds attractive as underlying assets, while tokenization makes these bonds more accessible in an on-chain format.