Janus Henderson has put a Nasdaq-100 tracker directly onto a public blockchain. The fund, called JQQQ, went live on Stellar using tokenization infrastructure from Centrifuge, according to a CoinMarketCap announcement and reporting from Cointelegraph dated October 27, 2026. For one of the industry's established fund managers, it is a step past the Treasury and credit products that have defined institutional tokenization so far.
Inside the JQQQ structure
JQQQ is set up as a segregated portfolio of a British Virgin Islands investment company. Holders get indirect exposure to the Nasdaq-100, not direct ownership of the 100 underlying stocks. Access is restricted to eligible professional investors outside the United States, and the entry point is a $100,000 minimum. The product is licensed through Nasdaq, which matters more than it sounds: the index name is not free to use, and a legal license is what separates a sanctioned tracker from an unofficial one.
The token itself is the wrapper, not the asset. A unit of JQQQ represents a claim on the fund, and the fund in turn holds the exposure that follows the index. That distinction is the whole design. Investors are not buying Apple or Nvidia shares on Stellar; they are buying a regulated fund interest that happens to settle and transfer as a blockchain token.
Janus Henderson's onchain book clears $1 billion
The launch lifts Janus Henderson's institutional onchain strategies past $1 billion in total value. The firm had already tokenized US Treasurys and structured credit, so the asset-management plumbing and the investor relationships were in place. JQQQ extends that book into equity-index exposure for the first time.
The shift from fixed income to an equity index is the part worth watching. Tokenized Treasurys and money-market products dominated the first wave because they are simple to value, pay a predictable yield, and appeal to treasuries parking cash. An equity-index wrapper is a different proposition. It carries market risk, it tracks a volatile benchmark, and it signals that managers now see demand for onchain exposure well beyond cash management.
Nasdaq's licensing shift opened the door
The move follows Nasdaq's April decision to widen Nasdaq-100 Index licensing to more asset managers, including BlackRock and State Street, while keeping its long-standing arrangement with Invesco, which runs the roughly $499 billion QQQ Trust ETF. Licensing is the gate. Without it, no issuer can legally build a product that tracks the index, onchain or off. Opening that door to several managers at once is what makes competing wrappers possible, and a tokenized version was always a likely result once the rights were available.
Centrifuge supplies the tokenization layer that puts the fund on Stellar. Its role is the connective tissue between a traditional fund administrator and a public ledger: minting the tokens, handling transfers, and keeping the onchain record aligned with the fund's books. For a manager like BlackRock, which has built similar rails with its own partners, that infrastructure layer is where most of the real engineering sits.
A tokenized Nasdaq-100 joins a crowded field
JQQQ lands in the middle of a fast-moving push to move traditional assets onto blockchains. Franklin Templeton added a $150 million tokenized fund to the XRP Ledger earlier this month, and tokenized stocks and ETFs cleared $37 billion in onchain volume in the third quarter. Most of these products share JQQQ's shape: a regulated fund wrapper, a blockchain for settlement and transfer, and an investor base gated by accreditation or geography.
Tokenization does not change what a fund holds. It changes how the units move. A token on Stellar can settle in seconds and transfer outside the hours of a traditional fund administrator, which is the practical draw for the professional desks these products target. It also makes a fund interest easier to use as collateral or to move between venues without a multi-day settlement lag.
The limits are just as clear as the appeal. The $100,000 minimum and the non-US restriction mean this is not a retail instrument, and it is not something an individual can tap from a wallet the way they would buy a token on an exchange. For now, the onchain Nasdaq-100 is a tool for institutions and professional investors, delivered through a fund structure rather than a consumer app. The retail version, if it comes, is a separate regulatory question that these launches do not answer.
Overview
Janus Henderson and Centrifuge launched JQQQ, a tokenized Nasdaq-100 fund on Stellar, open to non-US professional investors at a $100,000 minimum and licensed through Nasdaq. The fund delivers indirect index exposure through a British Virgin Islands segregated portfolio and lifts Janus Henderson's onchain strategies past $1 billion in total value. It extends a quickening trend of regulated managers wrapping traditional assets as blockchain tokens, moving the format from Treasurys and credit into equity-index exposure, while access stays limited to institutions rather than everyday holders.
