The short-term government bond fund will maintain a secondary record of shares on the Ethereum blockchain.

Robert Leshner, founder of DeFi lending protocol Compound, has founded a new company that will invest in short-term government securities.

Today, I’m excited to announce the founding of a new company, @superstatefunds

Superstate’s mission is to create regulated financial products that bridge traditional markets & blockchain ecosystems.

— Robert Leshner (@rleshner) June 28, 2023

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week, the fund called “Superstate” will allocate 95% of its net assets into U.S. Treasuries, government securities, collateralized repurchase agreements and other similar securities.

Although the fund will not invest directly in blockchain-based assets, which include tokens and cryptocurrencies, it will use the blockchain as a secondary record-keeping tool to track the shares held by certain shareholders. Initially, the share ownership will be recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. 

The official record of share ownership, however, will be maintained by a Wall Street transfer agent.

“The adviser believes that a blockchain-integrated recordkeeping system may provide operational efficiencies and enhance shareholder experience without negatively impacting the quality of the services provided by the fund’s transfer agent,” stated the filing. 

The filing also notes that, in the future, these shares could be available for purchase, sale, or transfer from one shareholder to another through a “peer-to-peer” blockchain exchange utilizing Secondary Blockchain Records. In this scenario, the transfer agent’s official record would be reconciled and routinely matched with the blockchain. 

“The primary limiting factor to DeFi is that crypto-native assets are the only interoperable assets. But eventually, hundreds of trillions of ‘offline’ assets will find their way onto blockchains. We plan to facilitate that migration,” said Leshner on Twitter.