Disruptive Technology

Franklin Templeton’s Industry Advisory Services conducts annual surveys and interviews with industry leaders. In this paper, we explore the evolving landscape of workplace and retirement planning, highlighting the need for a more client-centric approach that incorporates personalization, innovative investment options, and integrated advice to better serve individuals’ diverse needs and goals to further the future of the industry.

The final article in our “Future of Investing” series focuses on high-touch advisory services that seek to build communities and foster relationships within networks. Current platforms fall short in meeting the complex needs of high-net-worth clients, who are increasingly exploring diverse investment techniques and direct opportunities.

The latest article in our “Future of Investing” series explores the idea of direct-from-consumer models for financial advisory services, embedding advice upstream in the capital flow to influence its deployment. This model, similar to open banking, seeks to distribute advisory services at the point of capital receipt, shifting the focus from episodic capital raising to continuous collection and wealth optimization.

This bulletin is a roundup of some of the most important news and developments in the digital assets space, along with overall activity and price action for the top cryptocurrencies, blockchains and NFTs for the month.

As more savers are prioritizing financial independence over traditional retirement, the need for an inclusive-focused approach to financial planning has never been more critical, according to Franklin Templeton’s Regina Curry and Jacque Reardon. Read more about their conversation in this article.

To realize the full potential of diversity, organizations need to also be fully inclusive. Regina Curry, Chief Diversity Officer at Franklin Templeton, recently discussed effective inclusion strategies with Katrina Dudley, SVP of Public Market Investments. Read a summary of their insights in this article.

The Franklin Templeton Digital Asset team, Escape Velocity and Harvard Business School explore decentralization as a catalyst for disruption in cloud services.

Ethereum’s extensive developer community and its leading role in sectors like decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens and gaming highlight its significant impact on the decentralized digital economy and its position at the forefront of Web3 innovation.

This article examines Bitcoin layers—a decentralized financial system for decentralized money.

The Franklin Templeton Digital Asset team believes cryptocurrencies are much more than the misconceptions that often surround them and as the asset class matures, investors need to move beyond myths and evaluate cryptocurrencies with a nuanced, informed perspective.

This article examines the advantages of Ethereum as a protocol economy and how one could gain exposure to this breakthrough technology asset.

Learn how technological advances have shifted economic dynamics over different eras, and why the protocol economy may represent the most meaningful evolution yet.

In this issue of Disruptive Technology Views, we explore the advantages of public blockchains versus the disadvantages of private blockchains and outline the benefits of decentralized finance over traditional finance as they relate to the security lending markets.

Bitcoin has been at the forefront of the blockchain revolution, changing how investors perceive and hold their assets. This article explores the investment case for bitcoin, focusing on its main facets as a digital commodity and proxy to capture the beta of the emerging protocol economy. Furthermore, it delves into why now might be an opportune time to invest in bitcoin.

Learn more about the opportunity offered by the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs. This paper will explore the investment thesis that we see supporting an allocation to bitcoin as well as model the asset’s performance quantitatively to help investors understand how including bitcoin in a portfolio may affect their investments.

Franklin Templeton Digital Assets expects to see continued strength and renewed interest in crypto as an asset class in 2024.

Innovative technologies associated with the crypto domain are beginning to cross over and be piloted as part of the traditional financial infrastructure. Tracking developments in 2024 to determine how rapidly these experiments progress will be critical, according to Franklin Templeton Digital Assets.

The genuine value of crypto and blockchain lies in their ability to reduce the cost of trust via eliminating trusted intermediaries and enabling a trust-minimizing system. This core benefit is further amplified by the additional capabilities and applications these technologies bring.

With well-designed AI algorithms, investors can produce better outcomes. However, we still need professionals to operate AI tools to both guide and gut-check their recommendations. In this issue of Disruptive Technology Views, we provide more on the transformative power of AI in investment management.

This article reflects findings from Franklin Templeton’s Industry Advisory Services Annual Survey conducted between March and August of 2023. The underlying aim of this paper is to help our clients understand how the wealth and investment management industry is changing and better prepare them for the future.

Though many investors have dismissed the growth potential offered by crypto in the wake of the 2021–2022 sell off and in response to high-profile failures and actions against leading crypto firms, the space has continued to develop. Franklin Templeton Digital Assets discusses what might lie ahead for crypto.

Arguably, humanity’s greatest current challenge is the need to shift to low and net-zero carbon in a little less than 30 years. These challenges create investment opportunities as investors have a critical role given the capital required to fund this transition. Our specialist investment managers explore energy transition and the new technologies and infrastructures required.

Energy transition presents investors with many opportunities and challenges. It’s not just about cutting emissions; it is about decarbonizing entire sectors and overhauling the entire global economy. How do we do it and what role do investors play? We explore these questions and more.

As investors search for alpha, Chief Market Strategist, Stephen Dover, explores the vast universe of potential investment themes at the intersection of the energy-food-water nexus by drilling in on three possible opportunities that may emerge in the medium- to long-run.

Many government policies—both carrots and sticks—are driving the global transition to greener energy systems. In this piece, we compare regulatory sticks, like carbon pricing, with carrots like feed-in tariffs that subsidized solar renewables. We also discuss the role the quickly developing global industrial policy race is playing in catalyzing investments.

As the clean energy and electrification revolution continues to gather speed, Martin Currie explores the role real assets and listed utilities will play in delivering clean energy to both developed and emerging markets.

The US high-yield (HY) bond market was a key enabler of the shale oil and gas boom, with far-reaching implications ranging from geopolitics to US industrial competitiveness. Franklin Templeton Fixed Income explores whether the high-yield bond market will fund a boom in energy transition.

One person’s trash is another person’s jet fuel? Franklin Mutual Series explores investment opportunities that may materialize as air carriers and airplane manufactures move to make high-blend sustainable aviation fuel—or SAF—a reality. Rapidly developing fuel technologies may be the bridge to decarbonizing the aviation industry.

The steel industry is one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions. Is green steel the solution? Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity explores green steel from zero-emissions hydrogen, breaking down costs and technologies in each step of the production process.

Oil sands, more than other fossil fuel producers, seemingly face an uphill battle for investment dollars from sustainability-themed portfolios. Franklin Bissett Investment Management explores Canadian oil sands producers’ foundation investment in carbon capture technology as they attempt to reduce carbon emissions.

Franklin Equity Group discusses opportunity in natural gas production, infrastructure and transportation as global stakeholders partner to meet consumer demand while working toward societies’ climate change and energy transition goals.

Energy transition will be a key investment theme in the coming decades because of its integral role in the global economy. Stephen Dover, Head of Franklin Templeton Institute, synthesizes our specialist investment manager’s views for investors navigating the challenges and investment opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to give non-technical and non-crypto investors an understanding of proofs technology.

Years-to-Profitability (YTP) serves as a crucial metric in evaluating the profitability and sustainability of layer 1 (L1) blockchains.

This primer will provide an overview of Web3 and emerging digital assets, and related terms and technology. Its aim is to equip the reader with the foundational understanding necessary to appreciate the potential impact on the future of the financial industry, and also on economies and society more widely.