Plume has launched nBND, a tokenized vault backed primarily by shares of Fidelity Total Bond ETF, bringing actively managed bond exposure into its onchain asset platform.
Summary
- Plume launched nBND, a tokenized vault primarily backed by Fidelity Total Bond ETF shares onchain.
- Fidelity June data put FBND assets at $26.6 billion before newer estimates approached $28 billion.
- FBND invests across investment grade, high yield and emerging market debt under active management strategies.
- Plume says nBND expands onchain fixed income beyond short duration Treasuries and money market products.
- Plume plans to bring more Fidelity assets onchain after launching the nBND bond vault product.
Plume announced the product on Oct. 5, saying nBND uses Fidelity Total Bond ETF, or FBND, as its main reserve asset. The ETF invests across investment-grade bonds, high-yield debt and emerging-market securities.
The launch gives Plume users exposure to a different part of fixed income from the short-term Treasury and money-market products that have dominated tokenized bond markets. Plume CEO Chris Yin said institutional investors “want duration, and active management” alongside the shorter-term products already available onchain.
Plume uses Fidelity’s bond ETF as nBND’s main asset
FBND is an actively managed Fidelity ETF listed in the U.S. Plume’s announcement says shares of the fund form the primary reserve asset behind nBND, meaning the new vault is tied to an existing traditional investment product instead of a newly created bond portfolio.
Fidelity lists FBND as a fixed-income ETF designed for investors seeking income and some protection from stock-market volatility. The fund does not simply hold U.S. government debt. Its managers can allocate capital across government securities, investment-grade corporate debt, high-yield bonds and emerging-market exposure.
Official Fidelity materials put FBND’s inception date at Oct. 6, 2014 and its expense ratio at 0.36%. Its portfolio contained thousands of securities as of August, including U.S. Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities and corporate debt.
The launch material describes nBND as a tokenized vault backed by FBND shares. It does not say that every nBND holder becomes a direct registered shareholder of the underlying Fidelity ETF. The structure therefore should not be described as Fidelity placing the entire ETF itself onchain.
Plume did not disclose the amount of FBND shares deposited into nBND at launch or provide an initial total value locked figure for the vault.
The $28 billion figure belongs to FBND, not nBND
Some early reports described the new product as a tokenized $28 billion Fidelity ETF. The number needs a distinction.
Fidelity’s official ETF data showed FBND with $26.6 billion in assets as of June 30, 2026. More recent third-party fund data place total assets at approximately $28.2 billion.
The figure represents assets held by FBND across the traditional ETF, not capital deposited into Plume’s nBND vault. Plume has not said that $28 billion of bonds or ETF shares have moved onto its blockchain.
FBND itself has grown into a large actively managed bond ETF. Its holdings cover thousands of securities, with U.S. government debt forming a sizable portion of the portfolio alongside corporate credit, mortgage-backed securities and other fixed-income instruments. Fidelity’s current prospectus states that the fund seeks a high level of current income.
The ETF is approaching its twelfth anniversary, having launched in October 2014. Reports describing FBND as having a 20-year ETF track record appear to conflate it with Fidelity’s older Total Bond mutual fund strategy, which dates back further. Fidelity’s documents give Oct. 6, 2014 as the ETF’s inception date.
nBND moves tokenized bonds beyond short-term Treasuries
Plume is pitching nBND as a way to broaden the type of fixed-income assets available through tokenized vaults.
Tokenized bond products have commonly centered on Treasury bills and money-market instruments because their shorter maturities and relatively simple structures have made them early candidates for blockchain distribution.
Yin said short-duration Treasuries and money-market equivalents were the “starting points” for onchain fixed income. Plume’s new vault instead introduces duration and active portfolio management through FBND.
Plume cited growth in tokenized U.S. Treasuries from $12 billion in April to $15 billion in June as part of its case for expanding into other fixed-income products. The company contrasted that market with a global fixed-income sector exceeding $100 trillion. Those numbers describe the addressable traditional market and do not represent assets already committed to Plume.
The nBND launch follows several earlier Plume efforts to distribute traditional yield products through crypto infrastructure. Plume and Ether.fi launched a real-world asset vault with a planned $100 million allocation in June. Its asset mix included bond ETFs, credit pools and collateralized loan obligation exposure.
A separate Plume partnership brought fixed-income vaults to Bybit users, using products tied to PIMCO and CMBI. Plume later placed Bitwise and Invesco-linked products inside Binance Wallet through its nBASIS vault.
Plume already has regulated tokenization infrastructure
Plume has spent the past year building regulatory and operational infrastructure around tokenized financial assets.
Its Kimber Transfer Agency unit holds a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission transfer-agent registration. A transfer agent maintains ownership records and processes changes in ownership for securities under U.S. rules.
As crypto.news previously reported, Plume secured SEC transfer-agent registration for tokenized securities in October 2025, giving its infrastructure a regulated role in recordkeeping and fund administration.
Plume secured another regulatory approval in May when it received a digital asset business license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The company described the authorization as covering regulated onchain vault management.
Institutional partnerships have continued during 2026. Plume joined a DTCC digital-assets working group in August alongside companies including Nasdaq and Charles Schwab. The membership itself did not create a DTCC integration or place DTCC-held assets on Plume.
Plume and Shinhan Asset Management agreed to test a tokenized Korean won bond fund. The offshore proof of concept focuses on whitelist controls, know-your-customer checks and other operational requirements, without distributing tokens to Korean residents.
More Fidelity products could follow nBND
Fidelity confirmed its participation in the nBND project through Cynthia Lo Bessette, head of Digital Asset Management at Fidelity Investments.
Lo Bessette said Fidelity was working with Plume to bring financial products onchain and provide investors with more programmable portfolio tools. She referred to potential uses involving collateral and access to capital, while the announcement did not give adoption targets for nBND.
Plume described nBND as the beginning of its work with Fidelity and said other assets could follow. The Oct. 5 announcement did not identify the next Fidelity fund, provide a launch timetable or disclose how much capital had entered nBND on its first day.
