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Baillie Gifford, a UK asset manager with over £286 billion in assets, is now using Ethereum as the legal ownership register for a regulated UK fund. On this fund, the blockchain is the official ledger, not a mirror of one.
The vehicle is the Enhanced Yield Fund, ticker BAGEY. It is being described as the first fully native UK-regulated tokenized fund to run its ownership registry on Ethereum.
What Baillie Gifford actually built
Most tokenized funds so far have used a two-ledger setup. A traditional transfer agent keeps the real record off-chain, while a token on a blockchain acts as a digital twin of that entry.
BAGEY drops that setup. The tokens themselves are the legal representation of an investor’s interest in the fund. If the chain says you hold units, you hold units.
The fund was announced on June 22, 2026. Units were first made available on Solana, with units minted on Ethereum starting August 5, 2026.
That makes BAGEY a multi-chain product, at least in its distribution. The Ethereum piece is the one drawing attention because of its role as the register of record.
The fund’s terms and the institutions behind it
Under the hood, the strategy is fairly traditional. The fund holds a portfolio of government and corporate bonds and targets a yield of approximately 7%.
Investors can trade daily, and the minimum ticket for eligible investors is set at $100. The fund is aimed at professional investors in jurisdictions including the UK, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
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BNY Mellon supplies the tokenization and wallet infrastructure, which covers creating the tokens and managing the accounts that hold them.
NatWest Trustee and Depositary Services acts as the fund’s depositary. In UK fund structures, the depositary is the independent party that oversees how the fund is run and safeguards its assets.
The rule change that made it possible
That came from the Financial Conduct Authority’s policy statement PS26/7, published on April 30, 2026.
PS26/7 sets out how distributed ledger technology can be used inside authorized fund structures. Specifically, it permits DLT-based unitholder registers within OEIC structures.
An OEIC, or open-ended investment company, is a standard UK fund wrapper that issues and cancels shares as investors come and go. The unitholder register is the list of who owns those shares.
The FCA said the list could live on a blockchain. Baillie Gifford launched its fund within months of that guidance landing, with the gap between policy statement and first announcement roughly two months.
What this means for asset managers and crypto infrastructure
For Ethereum, the significance is less about price and more about role. A public blockchain serving as the legal source of truth for a regulated UK fund moves it from settlement experiment toward official record keeping.
The multi-chain angle is worth noting. Distributing on Solana and registering on Ethereum hints that managers may treat blockchains as interchangeable rails rather than picking a single home.
There are open questions for investors. The approximately 7% figure is a target, not a guarantee, and a bond portfolio still carries interest rate and credit risk regardless of which ledger tracks ownership.
Access also remains limited. The $100 minimum lowers the financial hurdle, but eligibility is restricted to professional investors in specific jurisdictions, so the product is not a retail on-ramp.
