Baillie Gifford Uses Ethereum as Legal Register for UK Fund

By Tom Whitfield

Baillie Gifford’s BAGEY fund is scheduled to mint units on Ethereum from Aug. 5, 2026, using the public chain as its legal register. The fund holds government and corporate bonds and targets a yield of approximately 7%, according to its announcement and terms.

Baillie Gifford announced the fund on June 22, 2026, and units first became available through Solana. Ethereum will serve as the register of record, while Solana supports initial distribution. BAGEY is therefore multi-chain in distribution, with a separate operational role for each network.

What did the FCA permit on April 30?

The Financial Conduct Authority’s policy statement PS26/7, published April 30, 2026, sets out how distributed ledger technology can operate inside authorized fund structures. It permits DLT-based unitholder registers within open-ended investment company structures.

An OEIC, or open-ended investment company, is a standard UK fund wrapper that issues and cancels shares as investors enter and exit. Its unitholder register identifies owners, and PS26/7 allows that list to live on a blockchain. Baillie Gifford announced BAGEY roughly two months after the policy statement, putting the permission to work within that interval.

How does BAGEY record ownership?

In operational terms, the structure resembles a conventional unitholder list, except that Ethereum supplies the ownership entries on a public chain. BAGEY’s terms state: “The tokens themselves are the legal representation of an investor’s interest in the fund.” Under that arrangement, the recorded token holding serves as the ownership record itself.

BNY Mellon supplies the tokenization and wallet infrastructure, covering token creation and management of the accounts holding 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 runs and safeguards its assets. That division separates infrastructure provision from independent asset oversight.

What are the yield and access terms?

The portfolio holds government and corporate bonds. The approximately 7% yield is a target, not a guarantee. Units can trade daily, with a $100 minimum ticket for eligible investors. BAGEY targets professional investors in jurisdictions including the UK, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

The $100 minimum lowers the financial hurdle, but eligibility keeps it from being a retail offering. PS26/7 permits a DLT register inside an OEIC; it does not guarantee portfolio returns or make the underlying bonds less risky.

Interest-rate and credit risk persists regardless of which chain tracks ownership. The structure broadens operational options for authorized funds without changing BAGEY’s professional-investor access limits.

Why use two blockchains?

For BAGEY, Solana provides the first unit-availability channel and Ethereum holds the authoritative register. The division lets a manager separate distribution from legal recordkeeping without requiring one network to perform every function. It also suggests asset managers may treat blockchains as complementary rails rather than committing a fund to one network.

For Ethereum, the central development is institutional. A public blockchain serving as the legal source of truth for a regulated UK fund moves the technology from a settlement experiment toward official recordkeeping. BAGEY also divides institutional duties: BNY Mellon creates tokens and manages the wallets holding them, while NatWest oversees fund operation and asset safeguarding as depositary.

The next dated checkpoint is Aug. 5, 2026, when BAGEY is scheduled to begin minting units on Ethereum alongside the Solana availability already established.