CEOInterviews.AIJennifer Johnson on cryptocurrency regulation
From SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci & Franklin Templeton's Jenny Johnson at Semafor World Economy · · Semafor Events
“I live through the Biden administration's war on crypto. We went to the White House, it was reasonably hostile until we got to Treasury where it became incredibly hostile, and of course they had this thing called Operation Chokepoint 2.0 where they were debanking people in our industry. And so, however critical I've been of Donald Trump or what's going on in the administration aspects of it, they have been more pro-crypto friendly than the past administration. And I don't think this is a left or right issue. This is a right or wrong issue. And I think if the Americans want to maintain the mantle of financial leadership that we have had for the last 125 years, we've got to get this right. This cannot be a partisan issue.”
On , Jennifer Johnson, Chief Executive Officer & Director at Franklin Resources Inc, spoke about cryptocurrency regulation during SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci & Franklin Templeton's Jenny Johnson at Semafor World Economy on Semafor Events.
About Jennifer Johnson
Jennifer Johnson, CEO and director of Franklin Resources, appeared at TOKEN2049 in Singapore in October 2026, where she and Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu announced a strategic collaboration to expand institutional access to tokenized real-world assets through the NUVA vault marketplace. In the discussion, Johnson stated that blockchain technology would naturally become the rails of financial services and predicted that all financial services would be on blockchain rails by 2040, citing its efficiency and ability to reach the roughly 1.5 billion people without access to traditional banking. She also noted that tokenization makes assets machine-readable, which she said would enable AI agents to become major buyers in a machine economy. In interviews and podcast appearances during September and October 2026, Johnson discussed Franklin Templeton's use of AI, stating the firm had seen productivity and sales gains, including an 11% uplift in sales and 23% more clients from reduced administrative work. She said the company could not afford to slow AI adoption despite unclear payoff and described the technology as not yet having entered the system, comparing its potential impact to electricity taking 30 years to reach manufacturing. Johnson also commented on markets, saying the regulatory environment under the current administration was friendlier, that productivity was at an all-time high with no AI contribution yet, and that despite sticky inflation and potential rate hikes, corporate earnings and consumer strength made 2026 a year of resilience. She also discussed blockchain's benefits, including a single source of truth that eliminates reconciliation costs, and highlighted the importance of starting to invest early, saying that $5,000 saved annually from age 20 to 29 would compound to more than starting at age 30.
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