DeFi Protocol Ondo Finance Puts 100 Tokenized Stocks On Ethereum

In brief

Ondo Finance launched tokenized versions of 100+ U.S. stocks and ETFs on Ethereum, backed by real assets held at registered U.S. broker-dealers.
The tokenized stocks are only available to non-U.S. investors due to regulatory restrictions.
The tokenized assets enable 24/7 trading and fractional ownership, allowing global investors to trade U.S. securities outside normal market hours.

Ondo Finance, a decentralized finance-focused asset manager and tech firm, has rolled out tokenized versions of more than 100 U.S.-listed stocks, ETFs, and other equities on Ethereum.

But the offering, called Ondo Global Finance, is only available for non-U.S. investors, according to an announcement from the company.

“Ondo tokenized stocks are fully backed and secured by U.S. stocks and ETFs held at one or more U.S.-registered broker-dealers and cash in transit,” the company said in its announcement. The blog post itself isn’t accessible to users in the U.S. without a VPN to bypass geofencing.

Ondo Finance is an Etheruem DeFi project that’s focused on the tokenization space. Earlier this year, the team acquired Oasis Pro, which already has broker-dealer and transfer agent licenses from U.S. regulators. Those licenses don’t mean Ondo Global will be available to U.S. traders, but they streamline the process Ondo undergoes to acquire the assets to back tokens.

Offering tokenized stocks has become a point of focus for many U.S.-based crypto companies. Crypto exchange Coinbase has said it wants to tokenize stocks since before its IPO and recently renewed the push. Trading platform Robinhood made waves in early July when its tokenized stock offerings included private companies—namely OpenAI and SpaceX.

A tokenized asset, like a stock, bond, or even property, can be held and traded on a blockchain. It can also be fractionalized, meaning that someone could own a tiny sliver of an asset that they couldn’t otherwise afford.

Ondo said all of the tokens being offered will be backed by real assets.

The team promised that Ondo will do for securities what stablecoins have done for dollars, making the tokenized assets tradeable outside of typical market hours and available worldwide.

Ondo is planning to expand beyond Ethereum and to bring tokenized assets to BNB Chain, Solana, and Ondo Chain. The company said the initiative is supported by many of the largest crypto wallets, including Trust Wallet, OKX Wallet, MEXC, Morpho, Ledger, and Bitget Wallet.

“Ondo’s launch of Global Markets is impactful because it delivers on tokenization where many earlier efforts fell short,”Jamie Elkaleh, chief marketing officer at Bitget, told Decrypt. “The platform brings more than 100 U.S. stocks and ETFs onchain, the widest asset range by far held by U.S.-registered broker-dealers, and enables 24/7 trading.“This combination of regulated backing and seamless blockchain access addresses the regulatory, liquidity, and interoperability hurdles that limited previous attempts at tokenized securities.”