What is Ondo?
Ondo Finance puts ordinary Wall Street assets on public blockchains: US Treasury bills, a dollar token that pays interest, and more than 450 American stocks and ETFs that trade around the clock. This guide explains how each product works, who runs the company after the death of its founder in 2026, what the ONDO token does and does not do, and where the real risks are.
Ondo's first product had nothing to do with Treasuries. It split DeFi liquidity pools into a safer slice and a riskier slice.
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The ONDO token trades on most large exchanges. Prices load from CoinGecko in your browser; if that fails, you will see a dated snapshot instead.
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| Product | Value | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| USDY (yield-bearing dollar) | $2.32B | Ondo site and RWA.xyz, 11 Oct 2026 |
| OUSG (tokenised Treasuries fund) | $319M | Ondo site and RWA.xyz, 11 Oct 2026. It was about $770M in April 2026. |
| Ondo Stocks (tokenised stocks and ETFs) | $1.33B / $927M | Ondo site figure / RWA.xyz figure, 11 Oct 2026 |
| All tokenised US Treasuries (every issuer) | $14.86B | RWA.xyz, 11 Oct 2026 |
| All tokenised stocks (every issuer) | $3.34B | RWA.xyz, 11 Oct 2026 |
Ondo in 60 seconds
Eight points. If you only read one section, read this one.
- Ondo is a tokenisation company. It takes assets that already exist in traditional finance and issues blockchain tokens that represent them. The assets stay with regulated custodians and brokers; the tokens move on public chains such as Ethereum, Solana and BNB Chain.
- It has three main product lines. OUSG is a tokenised Treasuries fund for large qualified investors. USDY is a dollar-denominated token for people outside the US that passes on Treasury-bill interest. Ondo Stocks (launched as Ondo Global Markets) offers tokens that track US shares and ETFs.
- The yield is not magic. It is the interest the US government pays on short-term debt, minus fees. When Treasury rates fall, so does the yield.
- Most products are not open to everyone. USDY and the offshore stock tokens exclude US persons. OUSG is only for wealthy, verified investors. A US-regulated route through Ondo's broker-dealer, Oasis Pro, began opening in mid-2026.
- ONDO is a governance token, not a share. It votes in the Ondo DAO. As of October 2026 it receives no fees, dividends or buybacks. That gap is the most common criticism of the token.
- The founder died in May 2026. Nathan Allman, who started Ondo in 2021 at about 27, died unexpectedly aged 32. President Ian De Bode took over. Allman's estate is contesting control of the company in a Delaware court, and the case was unresolved when this page was checked.
- The plan for its own blockchain changed. "Ondo Chain", a layer-1 announced in February 2025, was replaced in July 2026 by "Ondo Network", an off-chain trading engine that settles on public blockchains.
- It is big, but the giants are here too. Ondo is one of the largest issuers of tokenised Treasuries and the largest of tokenised stocks by most counts, yet it now competes with BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Circle, Binance, Kraken and Robinhood.
What does "tokenised" actually mean?Deep dive · 1 minute
A token is an entry on a blockchain that says "this wallet holds this many units". On its own that entry is just data. Tokenisation adds a legal promise: an issuer holds a real asset and agrees that whoever holds the token has a claim linked to that asset.
So every tokenised asset has two halves. The on-chain half gives you speed, 24-hour transfers and the ability to plug into other blockchain apps. The off-chain half (the legal documents, the custodian, the broker) decides what you really own if something goes wrong. Most of the hard questions about Ondo are about the second half.
Why would anyone want a Treasury bill on a blockchain?Deep dive · 1 minute
Three practical reasons. First, people and companies holding stablecoins earn nothing on them; the stablecoin issuer keeps the interest. A tokenised Treasury product passes most of that interest to the holder. Second, the token can move at any hour and settle in minutes, where a traditional fund redemption can take a day or more. Third, the token can be used as collateral inside other blockchain applications, which a brokerage-account holding cannot.
The trade-off is that you add new layers of risk: the issuer's structure, smart-contract bugs and rules about who may hold or redeem the token.
Four stages, four badges
Sections tick themselves off as you finish reading them. Progress is saved on this device only.
Origins: from DeFi vaults to Treasury bills
Ondo did not begin as a tokenisation company. Its first product failed to survive the 2022 bear market, and the pivot that followed is the reason it matters today.
2021: a structured-products start-up
Nathan Allman left Goldman Sachs' digital assets team in February 2021 and founded Ondo Finance. The first product, launched on Ethereum in August 2021, was called Ondo Vaults. It borrowed an idea from structured finance: take one pool of money and split it into slices with different risk.
In a vault, two kinds of investor supplied liquidity to a decentralised exchange such as Uniswap. One side accepted a fixed, lower return with some downside protection. The other side took whatever was left over, which could be much more or much less. A second product, Liquidity-as-a-Service, paired crypto projects that needed trading liquidity for their token with stablecoin issuers willing to supply the other half of the pool. Partners included Frax, Fei, UMA, Synapse and NEAR.
Ondo's documentation says the two products together handled more than $210 million of liquidity. Investors noticed. Pantera Capital led a $4 million seed round in August 2021. In April 2022 Founders Fund, the venture firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, co-led a $20 million Series A with Pantera. Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, GoldenTree, Wintermute and Flow Traders also took part. A public sale of ONDO tokens on CoinList in mid-2022 raised about $10 million more.
2022: the yield disappears
Vaults depended on high DeFi yields. As the market fell through 2022 those yields collapsed, and one early partner, Terra, failed outright. Ondo shut both products down. The company now calls that era "Ondo V1".
2023: the pivot
At the same time, something unusual had happened in traditional markets. The US Federal Reserve had raised interest rates sharply, so a plain three-month Treasury bill paid around 4 to 5 percent. Meanwhile tens of billions of dollars in stablecoins sat on blockchains earning their holders nothing.
In January 2023 Ondo relaunched as "V2" with tokenised funds. The flagship was OUSG, a token representing a share of a fund that at first simply held a BlackRock short-Treasury ETF. Alongside it came Flux Finance, a lending protocol where OUSG could be used as collateral. USDY, aimed at non-US individuals, followed later in 2023.
The timing was right. Tokenised Treasuries went from a curiosity to a market worth nearly $15 billion by October 2026, and Ondo was one of the first movers.
Why "Ondo"?
The company has not published a formal explanation of the name. It is often linked to the Spanish and Italian word onda, "wave", and the wave motif on this page's logo is our own nod to that. Treat the etymology as informal.
- Seed, Aug 2021: $4M, led by Pantera Capital.
- Series A, Apr 2022: $20M, co-led by Founders Fund and Pantera. It was equity with token rights.
- CoinList sale, 2022: about $10M in ONDO tokens sold to the public (roughly 2% of supply).
- Total reported: about $34M. Ondo has never disclosed a company valuation.
Ondo did not invent tokenised Treasuries, and it does not manage the bonds itself. Its insight was about packaging: wrap funds run by trusted managers such as BlackRock in a token that crypto users and protocols could actually hold and use, and offer redemptions at any hour. That "distribution layer" role is still what Ondo does.
How did a vault split risk in practice?Deep dive · 1 minute
Imagine a pool that earns 12% in a good year. A fixed-yield investor is promised, say, 6% and is paid first. The variable-yield investor gets everything above that. If the pool earns 12%, the variable side does very well. If the pool loses money, the variable side absorbs the loss first.
This is the same idea as senior and junior tranches in traditional credit markets. It was clever engineering, but it needed a steady supply of high DeFi yields to be worth the complexity.
Timeline: 2021 to October 2026
Filter by theme. Entries marked in gold are the turning points.
- 2021
- Feb 2021Nathan Allman leaves Goldman Sachs and founds Ondo FinanceCompany
He had worked on the bank's digital assets team since 2019.
- Aug 2021Ondo Vaults launch on Ethereum; $4M seed roundProduct
Structured DeFi vaults with fixed and variable yield. Pantera Capital leads the seed.
- Late 2021Liquidity-as-a-ServiceProduct
Pairs token projects with stablecoin issuers such as Frax and Fei to build trading liquidity.
- 2022
- 27 Apr 2022$20M Series A led by Founders Fund and PanteraCompany
Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, GoldenTree, Wintermute and Flow Traders join.
- Mid 2022CoinList public sale raises about $10MONDO token
Roughly 2% of ONDO supply is sold to the public; tokens stay locked.
- 2022Ondo V1 is wound downCompany
DeFi yields collapse and Vaults and Liquidity-as-a-Service are shut.
- 2023
- Jan 2023The pivot: OUSG and Flux Finance launchProduct
Ondo relaunches around tokenised US Treasuries. OUSG first holds a BlackRock short-Treasury ETF.
- 2023USDY launches for non-US usersProduct
A tokenised note that passes on Treasury-bill interest, designed to be used like a stablecoin.
- 2024
- 18 Jan 2024ONDO becomes transferableONDO token
A DAO vote unlocks the token. It begins trading around $0.09 and lists on major exchanges.
- Mar 2024OUSG moves into BlackRock's BUIDLPartners
Ondo shifts about $95M of OUSG backing into BlackRock's new tokenised fund and adds instant redemptions.
- 2024SEC opens a confidential investigationRegulation
It examines Ondo's tokenised products and whether ONDO is a security. It is not public at the time.
- Dec 2024ONDO reaches its all-time high near $2.14ONDO token
The peak comes in a broad crypto rally after the US election.
- 2025
- Jan 2025First annual unlock, about 1.94B ONDOONDO token
The first of five yearly releases of locked tokens.
- 5 to 6 Feb 2025First Ondo Summit: Global Markets and Ondo Chain announcedProduct
Ondo unveils its tokenised-stock platform and plans for its own layer-1 blockchain. Nexus is also introduced.
- 6 to 11 Feb 2025World Liberty Financial buys ONDO and announces a partnershipPartners
The Trump-linked project buys about $470,000 of ONDO and says it will explore holding OUSG and USDY.
- 28 Feb 2025Patrick McHenry joins as vice chairmanCompany
The former chair of the House Financial Services Committee takes a senior advisory role.
- 24 Apr 2025Ondo meets the SEC Crypto Task ForceRegulation
Allman and lawyers from Davis Polk propose a framework for tokenised US securities.
- May 2025Kinexys and Chainlink settle OUSG on the Ondo Chain testnetPartners
J.P. Morgan's blockchain unit tests paying bank dollars against a tokenised Treasury fund.
- Jul 2025Ondo Catalyst, Strangelove and Oasis ProCompany
A $250M investment programme with Pantera; the Strangelove engineering studio is acquired on 14 July; a deal for broker-dealer Oasis Pro is announced. 21Shares files for a US spot ONDO ETF.
- 3 Sep 2025Ondo Global Markets goes liveProduct
More than 100 tokenised US stocks and ETFs open to eligible non-US investors on Ethereum.
- 6 Oct 2025Oasis Pro acquisition completedCompany
Ondo gains an SEC-registered broker-dealer, alternative trading system and transfer agent.
- Nov 2025Ian De Bode becomes presidentCompany
The former McKinsey partner had been chief strategy officer since late 2023.
- 8 Dec 2025Ondo says the SEC investigation has closed with no chargesRegulation
The company calls it a milestone for tokenised securities in the US.
- 10 Dec 2025State Street and Galaxy announce the SWEEP fundPartners
Ondo plans to seed the tokenised cash fund with about $200M.
- 2026
- Jan 2026Second big unlock; 200+ stocks arrive on SolanaONDO token
About 1.94B ONDO unlocks, worth $655M to $770M. The price sits near $0.34.
- 3 Feb 2026Ondo Summit in New York; Global Listing launchedProduct
A service for tokenising newly listed shares on their first trading day.
- Mar 2026Franklin Templeton ETFs join; catalogue passes 250Partners
The SEC also approves a Nasdaq rule for tokenised listed shares.
- Apr 2026Total value passes $3B; Broadridge proxy votingProduct
Token holders can register voting preferences through Broadridge from 28 April.
- 6 May 2026Cross-border redemption with Kinexys, Mastercard and RipplePartners
OUSG is redeemed on the XRP Ledger and dollars arrive at a Singapore bank in near real time.
- May 2026Tokenised stocks pass $1B in valueProduct
Reached in under eight months from launch, the fastest in the sector.
- 25 May 2026Ondo announces the death of Nathan AllmanCompany
The founder and chief executive dies unexpectedly at 32. President Ian De Bode takes over.
- 2 Jul 2026First onshore tokens with full ownership rightsProduct
Oasis Pro TA tokenises BlackRock's IVV ETF and Micron shares for the US market.
- 7 Jul 2026Ondo Perps launchesProduct
Perpetual futures with up to 20x leverage, accepting tokenised shares as margin. Not available in the US.
- 13 Jul 2026Ondo Global Markets is renamed Ondo StocksProduct
The catalogue stands above 430 assets.
- 15 Jul 2026First tokens based on DTC tokenised entitlementsPartners
CRCLon and SPYon are linked to DTCC's new tokenisation pilot.
- 23 Jul 2026Oasis Pro Markets wins FINRA authorisationsRegulation
It may offer tokenised stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and IPO shares to US investors.
- 24 Jul 2026Allman's estate sues over control of the companyCompany
Kathleen Allman files in the Delaware Court of Chancery seeking to remove De Bode. He disputes the claims.
- 27 Jul 2026Ondo Network replaces the Ondo Chain planProduct
An off-chain execution network using secure enclaves, settling on public blockchains.
- Aug 2026USDY reaches BNB Chain and Tempo; new policy chiefCompany
Allison Parent, formerly of GFMA and Barclays, is named chief policy officer on 28 August.
- 3 Sep 2026Court order keeps De Bode as acting chief executiveCompany
He continues to run daily operations; major corporate changes are barred while the case proceeds.
- 15 to 17 Sep 2026CLARITY Act stalls; SEC announces an innovation exemptionRegulation
The Senate vote fails 49 to 50. The SEC then offers five-year relief for venues trading tokenised US shares.
- 16 Sep 2026First tokenisation member of DTCC Fund/SERVPartners
Oasis Pro Markets joins the network that handles most US mutual fund orders.
- 24 Sep 2026Ondo Intelligent PortfoliosProduct
Three portfolio tokens built on BlackRock model portfolios, for qualified non-US investors.
- 6 Oct 2026Ondo Private MarketsProduct
Tokenised notes tied to a pre-IPO AI company. Total value across Ondo is reported near $3.7B.
- 7 Oct 2026Ondo Stocks distributed across the EEAPartners
Austrian-licensed Assetera offers them to eligible investors in 30 countries.
- Ahead
- 18 Jan 2027Next scheduled unlock, about 1.94B ONDOONDO token
Further releases follow in January 2028 and January 2029.
How Ondo works
Every Ondo product follows the same pattern: a real asset held off-chain, a legal wrapper around it, and a token on a public blockchain. The differences are in what the asset is and who is allowed in.
Real securities
Treasury bills, money-market fund shares, listed stocks and ETFs. They are bought through ordinary brokers and held at regulated US custodians. Nothing about the asset itself is "crypto".
A legal vehicle
A fund (OUSG) or a special-purpose company that issues notes (USDY, Ondo Stocks). The wrapper owns the assets and owes the token holders. Its documents decide your rights.
A blockchain record
An ERC-20 style token that can be transferred at any time, held in a normal wallet, and used in other apps. Minting and redeeming connect the token back to the wrapper.
The products, one by one
OUSG: tokenised Treasuries fund
$319M · yield shown 3.60% · 11 Oct 2026OUSG stands for Ondo Short-Term US Government Treasuries. Each token is a share of a fund. The fund does not pick bonds itself. It invests in tokenised Treasury and money-market funds run by large managers. Ondo's documentation names BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree and Fidelity among them, and BlackRock's BUIDL fund has been the best-known holding since Ondo moved about $95 million into it in March 2024. The fund also keeps bank deposits and USDC so it can pay redemptions quickly.
- Who: investors who pass Ondo's "qualified access" checks. In the US that broadly means accredited investors who are also qualified purchasers.
- How: send USDC or PayPal's PYUSD, receive OUSG at that day's net asset value. Instant mint and redeem from $5,000, at any hour, within daily limits.
- Cost: 0.15% management fee, waived until 1 January 2027. The underlying funds charge their own fees.
- Chains: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and the XRP Ledger.
USDY: the yield-bearing dollar
$2.32B · yield shown 3.75% · token price $1.149 · 11 Oct 2026USDY is a tokenised note. You lend dollars to the issuer; the issuer holds short-term Treasuries, a short-Treasury ETF or bank deposits; and most of the interest comes back to you. It is not a stablecoin, although it is built to be used like one.
- Two versions: plain USDY rises in price as interest builds up (one token was worth about $1.149 in October 2026). rUSDY stays at $1.00 and gives you more tokens instead. You can switch between them.
- Who: individuals and firms outside the US and outside a list of prohibited countries, after identity checks. Stricter investor tests apply in the EEA, UK, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Brazil.
- Chains: Ethereum, Solana, Mantle, Sui, Aptos, Stellar, XRP Ledger, Noble, BNB Chain (August 2026) and Tempo (August 2026), among others.
- Note: Ondo's documents say USDY was folded into the same issuing umbrella as Ondo Stocks in December 2025.
Ondo Stocks: tokenised shares and ETFs
$1.33B by Ondo's count · launched 3 Sep 2025Launched as Ondo Global Markets with about 100 assets on Ethereum, and renamed Ondo Stocks in July 2026. Each token carries the ticker plus "on": TSLAon, NVDAon, SPYon. The issuer, Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited, buys the real share through a US broker-dealer and issues a note that tracks it.
- What you hold: economic exposure to the share, with dividends reinvested after withholding tax. You do not hold legal title to the share.
- Protection: the issuer is a separate bankruptcy-remote company; Ankura Trust holds a security interest over the collateral and attests to holdings daily.
- Trading: mint and redeem 24 hours a day, five days a week, with an "off-hours" weekend session for 31 of the most-traded assets.
- Scale: more than $27 billion of cumulative trading volume by early October 2026, according to Ondo's distribution partner Assetera.
Oasis Pro: the onshore business
Acquired Oct 2025 · FINRA authorisations 23 Jul 2026Ondo bought Oasis Pro in 2025 to get three US licences in one go: an SEC-registered broker-dealer, an alternative trading system and a transfer agent. This is the part of Ondo that can legally serve Americans.
- 2 July 2026: Oasis Pro TA tokenised BlackRock's IVV ETF and Micron shares in a form that gives holders real ownership and voting rights.
- 23 July 2026: Oasis Pro Markets received authorisation to offer tokenised stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and IPO shares to US investors.
- 16 September 2026: it became the first tokenisation platform to join DTCC's Fund/SERV, the network that processes most US mutual fund orders.
How widely ordinary US investors can actually use this was still being rolled out in October 2026. Check Ondo's site for current availability.
Newer and smaller products: Perps, Intelligent Portfolios, Private Markets, Global ListingDeep dive · 2 minutes
Ondo Perps (7 July 2026). A perpetual-futures exchange run by a separate company, Ondo Global Panama Inc. It offers up to 20x leverage on stocks, ETFs and commodities such as gold and silver, and lets traders post tokenised shares as margin. It is not available in the US. Leveraged derivatives are high risk; most beginners should treat this as something to understand, not something to use.
Ondo Intelligent Portfolios (24 September 2026). Three tokens, each representing a whole basket of stocks, bonds and bitcoin ETFs: BLKHIon (High Income), BLKDIGon (Diversified Growth) and BLKGRWon (High Growth). BlackRock supplies the model portfolios but, by its own description, is not the manager, sponsor or distributor. For qualified non-US investors only.
Ondo Private Markets (6 October 2026). Tokenised notes whose value follows the share price of a private company at a future "liquidity event" such as an IPO. The first is linked to an unnamed pre-IPO artificial-intelligence company. These notes are debts of the issuer, not shares, and carry extra risks: no ownership rights, uncertain valuation and thin trading.
Ondo Global Listing (3 February 2026). A service announced at the Ondo Summit that lets crypto platforms offer a tokenised version of a newly listed stock on its first day of trading.
Plumbing: Nexus, Bridge, USDon and Flux FinanceDeep dive · 2 minutes
Ondo Nexus. Technology that lets other issuers of tokenised Treasuries offer instant minting and redemption. Ondo's own balance of liquid assets stands behind it, so an investor in a partner fund can get in or out at any hour. Partners named at launch in February 2025 included Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree and Wellington Management.
Ondo Bridge. A tool for moving Ondo tokens such as USDY between blockchains. It runs on LayerZero messaging. Bridges add their own technical risk, so use the official one listed in Ondo's documentation.
USDon. An internal settlement token used inside Ondo Stocks. When you mint a stock token with USDC, the USDC is swapped one-for-one into USDon in the same transaction, and USDon buys the stock token. Redemptions always pay USDon instantly; converting back to USDC is instant only if the swap contract has enough USDC in it.
Flux Finance. A lending protocol, forked from Compound v2, where OUSG can be posted as collateral to borrow stablecoins. Ondo built it in 2023 and later sold it to the Ondo Foundation. ONDO holders govern it through the Ondo DAO.
Follow the dollar
Pick a product and step through what happens to $1 after you hand it over. Watch where the yield comes from and who takes a cut.
The tokenised-stock desk: mint, redeem and after-hours pricing
Stock tokens are created when someone buys and destroyed when someone sells back. The price you get depends on whether the real stock market is open. Change the session and place a few orders.
What this demo is teaching
While US markets are open, the issuer can buy or sell the real share at once, so the token price sits very close to the stock price. Ondo's pitch is that its tokens borrow the deep liquidity of the real exchange instead of relying on a thin on-chain pool.
Overnight, US brokers still offer limited trading, so minting continues with a wider spread.
At weekends there is no underlying market at all. Ondo quotes a price using its own method, only for selected assets, and with conservative size limits that shrink as orders fill. A quote can be refused when capacity runs out. If big news breaks on a Saturday, the token price is a guess until Monday.
Dividends are not paid out. After US withholding tax (30% for most non-US holders of US shares), the remainder buys more of the stock, so one token slowly comes to represent slightly more than one share.
Yield comparison slider
How much difference does a few percent make on idle dollars? Set your own numbers. The defaults are the rates Ondo displayed on 11 October 2026; an ordinary stablecoin pays its holder nothing.
Who can use what?
Access rules are the part of Ondo that surprises people most. Pick the description closest to you.
Simplified from Ondo's published eligibility pages, October 2026. Rules vary by country and change; only Ondo's onboarding decides.The ONDO token
ONDO is the governance token of the Ondo DAO. It is the part of Ondo most people can actually buy, and the part whose purpose is most debated.
The basics
- Supply: 10 billion tokens, all created at the start. Ondo's documentation says there is no scheduled inflation.
- Standard: ERC-20 on Ethereum, contract 0xfAbA6f8e4a5E8Ab82F62fe7C39859FA577269BE3.
- Tradable since: 18 January 2024, after a DAO vote lifted transfer restrictions. It started around $0.09.
- Peak: about $2.14 in December 2024. In early October 2026 it traded around $0.50.
- Circulating: roughly 4.87 billion according to CoinGecko in October 2026. Data providers count this differently; a 21Shares filing put the figure near 5.1 billion in January 2026.
What ONDO does
ONDO holders can vote on proposals in the Ondo DAO, which governs Flux Finance and certain Ondo Foundation matters. Locked tokens can vote too. That is the whole of its confirmed function today.
What ONDO does not do
- It is not a share in Ondo Finance Inc. Equity in the company is held separately by the founder's estate, employees and venture investors.
- It does not receive a cut of the fees Ondo earns on OUSG, USDY or stock tokens. Analysts estimated those fees at tens of millions of dollars a year in 2026; data site DefiLlama showed revenue to token holders as zero.
- You do not need it to use any Ondo product.
- It is not staked to secure a network. Ondo Network's design paper mentions possible future staking roles, without dates or commitments.
Who got the 10 billion?
Tap a slice for detail. Percentages are approximate, from Ondo Foundation documents and the 21Shares ETF filing.
The January unlock cliff
Locked ONDO is released in large steps on each anniversary of the January 2024 vote, through January 2029. Drag to see the approximate picture.
■ already unlocked before this date ■ unlocked on this date
Approximation built from reported unlock sizes (about 1.94B each January). "Unlocked" is not the same as "sold" or "circulating".
Why unlocks matter
The January 2026 release was about 1.94 billion ONDO, worth roughly $655 to $770 million depending on the day's price. Another of similar size is scheduled for 18 January 2027. Recipients are not obliged to sell, but the possibility weighs on the market each winter.
ETFs and ETPs on ONDO
21Shares lists an ONDO exchange-traded product in Europe. In the US it filed for a spot 21Shares Ondo ETF in 2025 and amended the filing on 6 February 2026, naming Nasdaq as the listing venue and Coinbase Custody and BitGo as custodians. We could not confirm an approval or launch as of October 2026.
Who holds it
The 21Shares filing cites an outside estimate that about 45% of unlocked ONDO may be held by insiders. Court filings in 2026 say the late founder's estate also holds a large ONDO position, some of it still unlocking over the next three years.
If ONDO earns nothing, why does it have a multi-billion-dollar value?Deep dive · 2 minutes
There are three honest answers, and none of them is a guarantee.
Option value. The DAO could one day vote to route fees, buybacks or staking rewards to the token. Buyers are paying for that possibility.
A proxy bet. Ondo Finance is private, so the token is the only liquid, widely available asset with "Ondo" in its name. Many buyers use it as a bet on the growth of tokenisation in general, even though the legal link between the business and the token is loose.
Ecosystem incentives. More than half the supply is earmarked for ecosystem growth, which the Foundation can use to reward users and partners.
Critics reply that a token with governance over one small lending protocol should not be valued like the company. Supporters reply that most governance tokens started this way. Both points are fair, and it is why this page offers no view on price.
People and organisations
Ondo is a group of related entities. Knowing who is who explains most of the 2026 headlines.
Founder profile: Nathan Allman (c. 1993 to 2026)
- Education
- Brown University (economics and biology); Stanford Graduate School of Business is also reported
- Before Ondo
- Prospect Capital Management; ChainStreet Capital; Goldman Sachs digital assets
- Founded Ondo
- 2021, after leaving Goldman in February
- Died
- Announced 25 May 2026, aged 32. No cause has been made public.
Nathan Allman, known to colleagues as Nate, studied economics and biology at Brown University. His first job in finance was a year as an associate at Prospect Capital Management, a private-credit and alternative-asset manager. That is where he met the machinery of structured credit: tranches, senior and junior claims, the careful slicing of risk.
In 2018 he moved into crypto as a partner at ChainStreet Capital, a small quantitative crypto hedge fund, which he ran until 2019. In mid-2019 he joined the digital assets team at Goldman Sachs, working first on security tokens and then, from around mid-2020, on early pieces of a crypto prime-brokerage desk. He left in February 2021 to start Ondo.
The through-line in his career is visible in the products. Ondo Vaults applied the tranche idea from his credit days to DeFi liquidity pools. When that market dried up, he took the other half of his background, the conservative, regulated side, and used it for the pivot to tokenised Treasuries in 2023. At the TOKEN2049 conference that year he argued that cash equivalents such as Treasury bills and money-market funds were the natural first assets to tokenise, because they are simple, liquid and already understood.
Allman positioned Ondo as the crypto firm that would work with regulators and incumbents. He chose BlackRock's fund as backing, hired from Goldman, McKinsey and BlackRock, and in April 2025 personally led a meeting with the SEC's Crypto Task Force, accompanied by lawyers from Davis Polk, to propose a framework for tokenised US securities. When Ondo completed the Oasis Pro acquisition in October 2025 he described it as giving the company the licences and infrastructure needed for regulated tokenised securities markets in the US.
He was also unusually dominant within his own company. Court papers filed after his death describe him as chief executive, sole director and controlling shareholder. A second board seat was vacant.
On 25 May 2026 Ondo announced that he had died unexpectedly. He was 32. The company gave no further detail and none is needed here. In its statement Ondo said: "Nate's brilliance, humility, and drive shaped every part of what Ondo is today." Under his leadership the firm had grown from a failed first product to roughly $3.8 billion in customer assets across 13 blockchains.
He died without a will. That fact, combined with his concentrated control, set off the succession dispute described below.
Current leadership
Early coverage also names Pinku Surana, a former Goldman Sachs technologist, as a co-founder and first technology chief; he does not appear on the current team page. Jack Zampolin joined as a product vice-president when Ondo bought his firm Strangelove in July 2025.
What happened
- 26 June 2026: a Hawaii probate court appointed Allman's mother, Kathleen Allman, as personal representative of his estate. His parents inherit.
- 24 July: using the estate's votes, she appointed herself and Allman's sister to the board, which voted to remove De Bode and name her chair and interim chief executive. The same day she filed Allman v. Ondo Finance Inc. in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
- The estate says De Bode took the top job without valid board approval and received a large pay award it wants cancelled.
- De Bode says the bylaws made him chief executive automatically, calls the claims "meritless", and says lead investors and the Ondo Foundation back him.
- 3 September: a court order left De Bode running day-to-day operations as acting chief executive while barring major corporate changes until the case is decided.
- September: a separate petition in Hawaii, brought by a relative and an early investor, challenged Kathleen Allman's control of her share of the estate. She denies its claims.
- 23 September: CoinDesk reported that Ondo had been shopped to buyers; Ondo called the report "wholly untrue".
Why it matters to users
Customer assets sit outside the fight. The Treasuries and shares behind OUSG, USDY and Ondo Stocks are held by separate funds and special-purpose issuers with their own directors, custodians and security agent. A dispute over who runs Ondo Finance Inc. does not change who owns that collateral.
Strategy could still be affected. While the case runs, large decisions such as acquisitions or new share issues are restricted. Hires and deals made in the meantime could in theory be challenged later.
The business has kept shipping. Between July and October 2026 Ondo launched Perps, Ondo Network, Intelligent Portfolios and Private Markets, joined DTCC's Fund/SERV and expanded in Europe and Korea.
This is a family's loss as well as a corporate story. We have left out personal allegations that do not help a reader understand Ondo.
The organisations
Investors and backers
Founders Fund and Pantera
Co-led the 2022 Series A. Pantera also led the 2021 seed and, in July 2025, committed with Ondo to a $250 million programme called Ondo Catalyst to invest in tokenisation projects.
Coinbase Ventures and others
Tiger Global, GoldenTree Asset Management, Wintermute, Flow Traders and Steel Perlot took part in the Series A, along with an unnamed university endowment.
World Liberty Financial
The Trump-family-linked crypto project bought about $470,000 of ONDO on 6 February 2025 and announced a partnership days later to explore holding OUSG and USDY as reserves. This was a market purchase of tokens, not an investment in the company.
Ecosystem: who uses Ondo and who it works with
Ondo's strategy is to sit between large asset managers and the places crypto users already are. That makes its partner list long. Here is what each relationship really is.
BlackRock
Three separate links. OUSG holds BlackRock's BUIDL tokenised fund. Ondo's onshore arm tokenised BlackRock's IVV ETF in July 2026. And BlackRock supplies model portfolios for Ondo Intelligent Portfolios. BlackRock is a supplier and counterparty, not an owner of Ondo.
Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, Fidelity, Wellington
Named by Ondo as managers of funds that OUSG holds or as Nexus partners. Franklin Templeton also made five of its ETFs available as Ondo stock tokens in March 2026.
State Street and Galaxy
Announced the SWEEP tokenised cash fund in December 2025, with Ondo planning to seed it with about $200 million. It launched in 2026 on Solana, with Ethereum and Stellar also reported.
J.P. Morgan Kinexys, Mastercard, Ripple
In May 2025 Kinexys and Chainlink ran a test settlement of OUSG against bank dollars on the Ondo Chain testnet. In May 2026 the group went further: Ripple redeemed OUSG on the XRP Ledger, Mastercard's Multi-Token Network routed the payment instruction, and Kinexys paid dollars to Ripple's bank in Singapore. The blockchain leg took under five seconds.
PayPal PYUSD
OUSG can be bought with PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin as well as USDC. This is a payment option, not a corporate partnership in the wider sense.
DTCC, Broadridge, Alpaca
Ondo issued the first stock tokens based on DTC "tokenised entitlements" in July 2026 (CRCLon and SPYon, connecting through Alpaca). Broadridge provides proxy voting for token holders. Since September 2026 approved institutions can convert real shares into Ondo Stocks through Alpaca's network.
Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain and more
Ondo Stocks live on Ethereum, BNB Chain and Solana, with a bridge to HyperEVM and distribution through NEAR Intents (September 2026). USDY is on roughly a dozen networks. The Solana launch in January 2026 added more than 200 stock tokens at once.
Chainlink and LayerZero
Chainlink supplies the price feeds that let lending apps accept stock tokens as collateral. LayerZero carries Ondo tokens between chains. See our sister guide whatislink.com for how oracles work.
Wallets and exchanges
The 2025 "Global Markets Alliance" grew to more than 25 members, including wallets (Trust Wallet, Bitget Wallet, OKX Wallet), custodians (BitGo, Fireblocks, Ledger) and exchanges. Blockchain.com added 173 Ondo assets in June 2026; Exodus, MEXC, Gate and others list them too.
Europe, Korea, Japan
Austrian-licensed Assetera began distributing Ondo Stocks to eligible investors across the 30 EEA countries in October 2026. Kakaopay Securities partnered with Ondo in September 2026 on bringing Korean shares to global investors. Japan's SBI Group has also been reported as a partner.
Mirae Asset / Global X
Reported in 2026 to be tokenising Global X ETFs with Ondo. Several Global X thematic funds appear in the Ondo Stocks catalogue.
Morpho, 1inch, Jupiter, Flux
Lending markets accept USDY, OUSG and some stock tokens as collateral; aggregators route trades. This "composability" is the main thing a token offers that a brokerage account cannot.
Acquisitions: Strangelove and Oasis ProDeep dive · 1 minute
Strangelove (14 July 2025). A blockchain engineering studio and validator operator. Ondo bought it for its developers, who were meant to build Ondo Chain and now work on Ondo's infrastructure more broadly.
Oasis Pro (announced July 2025, completed 6 October 2025). Founded in 2019, it held a rare set of US licences for digital securities. The price was not disclosed. This purchase is why Ondo could move onshore in 2026.
A bigger deal? In late July 2026 CoinDesk reported Ondo was weighing an acquisition worth $250 to $500 million, possibly in wealth technology. Ondo said it was not in talks with anyone. With the court order limiting major corporate changes, a large deal looks difficult until the control case is settled.
Roadmap and what comes next
Ondo's plans changed more in 2026 than in any earlier year. Here is what has been said publicly, with the uncertain parts marked.
From Ondo Chain to Ondo Network
The original plan (February 2025): Ondo Chain, a new layer-1 blockchain for institutions. Validators would be known, regulated firms; they could stake real-world assets as well as tokens; and the chain would have built-in defences against front-running. A testnet ran in 2025.
What replaced it (27 July 2026): Ondo Network, which the company says "isn't a blockchain today". Trading logic runs privately and quickly inside secure hardware called a trusted execution environment, or enclave. A group of independent "attestors" checks that the enclave runs approved code and each holds a piece of the keys. Final asset transfers settle on public blockchains, Ethereum first.
Why: after building Ondo Perps, the team concluded its bottleneck was fast, private order matching, which a traditional blockchain does poorly. Its first application is Ondo Perps.
Honest caveat from Ondo's own post: execution currently runs in a single enclave, not a replicated network, and the attestors have not been named.
- A larger, eventually permissionless set of attestors who post a bond.
- Publishing settled state to a public blockchain.
- Outside "watchers" who can replay the log and challenge bad results.
- A possible proof-of-stake security model. This is the one place a future role for staking is mentioned. No dates are given.
More assets, more places
- Catalogue: Ondo has spoken of more than 1,000 tokenised securities. It had about 450 in October 2026, short of the "1,000 by end of 2025" hoped for at launch.
- Retail onboarding: direct minting on Ondo Stocks is still limited to institutions; Ondo says retail access to the platform itself is planned. Individuals currently buy through partner wallets and exchanges.
- 24/7 minting: round-the-clock creation and redemption started in July 2026 for a handful of the largest tickers and is being widened.
- US market: build out the Oasis Pro route so American brokers and advisers can offer tokenised securities.
- Private markets: more pre-IPO company notes after the first AI-linked one.
- 20 October 2026: comment period closes on the SEC's proposed "Regulation Crypto Assets".
- 1 January 2027: OUSG's management-fee waiver is due to end.
- 18 January 2027: next ONDO unlock, about 1.94 billion tokens.
- 2027: an Ondo Summit is being planned, according to Ondo's legal pages.
- Undated: the Delaware ruling on who controls Ondo Finance; any DAO vote on a fee switch.
The regulatory story so far
Investigated, then cleared
The SEC opened a confidential investigation in 2024 into whether Ondo's tokenised products complied with securities law and whether ONDO was itself a security. On 8 December 2025 Ondo said the SEC had closed it with no charges. The SEC, as usual, did not comment.
Lobbying for a framework
Ondo met the SEC's Crypto Task Force in April 2025 and proposed sandboxes and tailored relief for tokenised securities. A White House digital-assets report in July 2025 cited Ondo as an example of compliant tokenised finance. Ondo has kept filing comment letters, including one on trading rules in August 2026.
Rules arrive piecemeal
The SEC approved a Nasdaq rule for tokenised listed shares in March 2026 and proposed a broad crypto rulebook in August. On 15 September the Senate failed, 49 to 50, to advance the CLARITY market-structure bill. Days later the SEC announced a five-year "innovation exemption" for venues trading tokenised US shares, on condition that tokens carry full dividend and voting rights and run on public blockchains.
Ondo compared with its rivals
Figures are from RWA.xyz on 11 October 2026 unless noted. The table compares structures, not investment merit.
Swipe the table sideways →
| Product | What it is | Who can hold it | What the holder owns | Where it lives | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ondo USDY / OUSG | Tokenised note (USDY) and fund share (OUSG) backed by short-term Treasuries and Treasury funds | USDY: verified non-US users. OUSG: qualified investors | A secured claim on the issuer (USDY) or a fund interest (OUSG) | About a dozen public chains | $2.32B and $319M |
| BlackRock BUIDL (via Securitize) | Tokenised institutional money-market fund | Qualified purchasers, $5M minimum at launch | A fund share recorded by Securitize as transfer agent | Several public chains | $2.20B |
| Franklin Templeton BENJI | Shares of a registered US government money fund, recorded on-chain | US retail investors can use it through Franklin's app; institutional version too | A share in a registered mutual fund | Stellar, plus other public chains | About $2.4B across BENJI and iBENJI |
| Circle USYC | Tokenised short-Treasury fund, now owned by the USDC issuer | Non-US institutions | Fund share | Public chains | $2.38B (largest single product) |
| Superstate USTB | Tokenised short-duration government fund from Compound's founder | Qualified purchasers | Fund share | Ethereum, Solana and others | $598M |
| Ondo Stocks | Tokens tracking 450+ US stocks and ETFs, backed one-for-one | Non-US users through partners; institutions mint directly | Offshore: economic exposure, not title. Onshore (Oasis Pro): real ownership | Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana | $927M (RWA.xyz); $1.33B (Ondo) |
| xStocks (Backed, Kraken) | Tokenised stocks issued by Backed, which Kraken agreed to buy in late 2025 | Non-US users on Kraken, Bybit and DeFi | A tracker certificate backed by the share | Solana first, then Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron | $594M |
| Binance-linked stock tokens | Stock tokens tied to the Binance ecosystem, which grew very quickly during 2026 | Eligible users outside the US; details vary by country | Exposure through the issuer's structure; check its terms | BNB Chain (as reported) | $923M, close behind Ondo |
| Robinhood stock tokens | Derivative-style tokens for EU customers | Robinhood EU customers | A contract with Robinhood that follows the share price; not the share | Arbitrum; Robinhood's own chain planned | $136M |
| Securitize / Superstate tokenised shares | Shares tokenised with the issuing company's cooperation | Varies; some open to US investors | The actual registered share | Ethereum, Solana | $426M and $54M |
| Canton Network approach | A privacy-first network where banks tokenise assets among themselves; used in DTCC's 2026 pilot | Institutions that join the network | Depends on the application | Canton's own permissioned infrastructure | Not comparable; see whatiscanton.com |
| Plain stablecoins (USDT, USDC) | Dollar tokens for payments and trading | Almost anyone | A claim to $1 for approved redeemers; no interest | Nearly every chain | Hundreds of billions of dollars |
Where Ondo is strong
Breadth and openness. No rival offers Treasuries, a yield-bearing dollar and hundreds of stocks across this many public chains, with instant minting and tokens that move freely between wallets and DeFi apps.
Where rivals are stronger
Franklin's fund is a registered product open to US retail. BlackRock and Circle have balance sheets and brands Ondo cannot match. Securitize and Superstate tokenise the real share with the company's blessing. Binance and Robinhood own their customers.
The market-share picture
Ondo held about 58% of tokenised stocks when the sector passed $1 billion and was cited near 70% in spring 2026. By 17 August 2026 The Block put Ondo at $957M of a $2.8B market, roughly a third, with Binance and xStocks close behind. Growth continues, but the lead has narrowed.
Wallets guide
ONDO is a standard Ethereum token, so most wallets can hold it. Tokenised stocks and USDY have extra rules. Filter by what you need.
Ledger
Stores keys offline on a physical device. Holds ONDO and other Ethereum tokens, and is listed by Ondo as a custodian that supports its stock tokens. Best for larger amounts you rarely move.
Trezor
Open-source hardware wallet. Holds ONDO as a standard ERC-20 token, usually alongside MetaMask or Trezor Suite.
MetaMask
The most widely used Ethereum wallet. Add ONDO by contract address if it does not appear. Works with Uniswap and most DeFi apps.
Trust Wallet
Multi-chain wallet and a launch partner for Ondo's tokenised stocks. Availability of stock tokens depends on your country.
Bitget Wallet
Multi-chain wallet and Global Markets Alliance member with an in-app section for Ondo stock tokens.
OKX Wallet
Multi-chain wallet and launch partner for Ondo Global Markets in 2025.
Phantom
Started on Solana and now supports Ethereum too, so it can hold ONDO as well as Solana-based USDY and stock tokens.
Rabby
Ethereum-focused wallet that previews what each transaction will do before you sign. Popular with DeFi users.
Exodus
Beginner-friendly multi-asset wallet. Its Exodus Markets feature launched in June 2026 with more than 200 Ondo assets on Solana.
Safe
Requires several approvals for each transaction. Common for companies, DAOs and treasuries holding ONDO, USDY or OUSG.
Fireblocks
Used by funds and trading firms. Listed by Ondo as supporting its tokenised stocks.
BitGo
Regulated custody for institutions, a launch partner for Ondo Global Markets and one of the custodians named in the 21Shares ONDO ETF filing.
Where and how to buy
Two different questions hide here: how to buy the ONDO token, and how to get Ondo's products. Neither is a recommendation.
Buying the ONDO token
- Choose a regulated exchange available in your countryONDO is listed on most major venues, including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Gate and Upbit. Availability differs by country.
- Open and verify an accountExpect identity checks. Turn on two-factor authentication with an authenticator app, not SMS.
- Fund itBank transfer is usually cheapest. Card purchases cost more.
- Find the ONDO market and check the tickerThe token is "ONDO". Do not confuse it with USDY, OUSG or any stock token ending in "on".
- Place the orderA limit order lets you set the price. A market order fills at once at whatever price is available.
- Decide where to keep itLeaving tokens on an exchange is simple but means trusting the exchange. Withdrawing to your own wallet over the Ethereum network gives you control and responsibility.
- Keep recordsMost countries tax crypto gains. Save the trade confirmations.
On-chain alternative: ONDO trades on decentralised exchanges such as Uniswap. You need ETH for network fees and must check the contract address yourself.
Getting Ondo's products
Through a partner app
If you live outside the US and other excluded countries, the usual route is a wallet or exchange that lists Ondo Stocks, such as Trust Wallet, Bitget Wallet, OKX Wallet, Blockchain.com, Exodus or a listed exchange. You swap a stablecoin for the token. Only onboarded institutions mint directly with Ondo.
Onboard with Ondo, or swap on-chain
Eligible non-US users can complete identity checks at ondo.finance and mint with USDC, or by bank wire from $100,000. Smaller amounts are often bought on decentralised exchanges on chains where USDY trades. Check you are eligible either way.
Qualified investors only
Complete Ondo's qualified-access onboarding, then mint with USDC or PYUSD from $5,000 for instant orders.
A different door
US residents cannot use USDY or the offshore stock tokens. The regulated route runs through Oasis Pro Markets and, over time, brokers and advisers that connect to it. In October 2026 this was at an early stage.
Risks and criticisms
A frank list. Some of these apply to the ONDO token, some to the products, some to the company. They are different risks and should not be blurred together.
ONDO has no claim on Ondo's income
The business earns fees; the token does not receive them. A governance vote could change that, but none had by October 2026. If it never happens, holders own voting rights over a small lending protocol and a share of an ecosystem fund. This is the central criticism of ONDO and it is a reasonable one.
Unlock overhang
About 1.94 billion ONDO unlocks each January through 2028, with a final release in 2029. That is close to a fifth of total supply each time. A large share belongs to insiders and early investors who bought at very low prices.
The control dispute
Who lawfully runs Ondo Finance is before a Delaware court. A court order limits major corporate actions meanwhile. Key hires or deals could be challenged, senior staff could leave, and partners may hesitate. The founder's estate also holds a large ONDO position whose future is unknown.
You hold a claim on an issuer, not the asset itself
Offshore stock-token holders have no legal title, no binding vote and no direct claim on the share. They rely on a British Virgin Islands company, its security agent and its US custodians doing what the documents say. "Bankruptcy-remote" structures are designed to protect holders, but Ondo's have not been tested in a real insolvency.
Geo-restrictions and gatekeeping
US persons are shut out of USDY and offshore stocks. Canada is prohibited. Ordinary investors in the EEA, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong generally do not qualify to onboard. Only verified users can redeem with the issuer, so everyone else depends on someone else being willing to buy their token.
Thin liquidity outside market hours
At weekends there is no real stock market to hedge against. Spreads widen, size limits apply and quotes can be refused. On-chain pools for individual stock tokens can be shallow, so a large order may move the price. A token can also trade away from the share's true value until arbitrage catches up.
Dividends are taxed and reinvested for you
For most US shares, 30% of each dividend is withheld before reinvestment. The token then no longer equals exactly one share, which confuses price comparisons. Your own tax position may be more complicated than with a normal brokerage account.
Yield falls when interest rates fall
USDY showed about 4.65% in mid-2026 and 3.75% in October. OUSG shrank from about $770 million in April to about $320 million in October. If Treasury yields keep falling, the main reason to hold these tokens weakens.
Smart contracts, bridges and enclaves
Tokens depend on audited but fallible code. Bridges have been among the most attacked parts of crypto. Ondo Network adds a new trust assumption: secure hardware and an unnamed group of attestors, with execution in a single enclave for now.
The giants have arrived
BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan and Circle issue their own tokenised funds. Binance, Kraken and Robinhood issue stock tokens to their own customers. DTCC is tokenising at the core of the US market. Ondo's suppliers can become its competitors, and its share of tokenised stocks fell from about 70% to about a third within months.
Rules are still being written
The closed SEC probe is not a permanent blessing. The CLARITY Act stalled in September 2026. The SEC's innovation exemption favours tokens with full shareholder rights, which the offshore product lacks. European rules already restrict who may be offered these notes.
Perps are a different animal
Ondo Perps offers up to 20x leverage. A 5% move against a fully leveraged position wipes it out. It is run by a Panama entity and is unavailable in many countries. Its existence says nothing about the safety of the Treasury products, and vice versa.
Myths and facts
Tap a card to see what is true.
Glossary
Plain definitions for the jargon on this page. Type to search.
- Accredited investor
- A US legal category for people or firms with enough income or assets to buy private investments.
- Alternative trading system (ATS)
- A regulated US trading venue that is not a full stock exchange. Oasis Pro operates one.
- Attestation
- A statement by an independent party confirming that assets exist. Ankura Trust publishes daily attestations for Ondo Stocks.
- Attestor
- In Ondo Network, an operator that checks an enclave is running approved code and holds part of a key.
- Bankruptcy-remote
- A legal structure meant to keep assets safe if a related company fails, usually by placing them in a separate vehicle.
- Broker-dealer
- A firm licensed to buy and sell securities for customers and for itself.
- BUIDL
- BlackRock's tokenised money-market fund, administered by Securitize. A core holding of OUSG.
- Composability
- The ability of a token to be used inside other blockchain applications, for example as loan collateral.
- DAO
- Decentralised autonomous organisation: a group that makes decisions by token-holder votes.
- DvP
- Delivery versus payment: the asset and the cash change hands at the same moment, so neither side can be left empty-handed.
- Enclave / TEE
- A trusted execution environment: a sealed area of a processor that runs code privately and can prove which code it ran.
- ERC-20
- The standard format for tokens on Ethereum. ONDO is an ERC-20 token.
- Fee switch
- A governance decision to start sending a share of a protocol's revenue to its token holders.
- Flux Finance
- A lending protocol built by Ondo and now owned by the Ondo Foundation, governed by ONDO holders.
- Fund/SERV
- DTCC's system for processing mutual fund orders between fund companies and distributors.
- Governance token
- A token whose main function is voting on how a protocol or treasury is run.
- Mint
- To create new tokens, normally when someone deposits money with the issuer.
- Money-market fund
- A fund holding very short-term, low-risk debt, designed to keep a steady value and pay modest interest.
- NAV
- Net asset value: the worth of a fund's holdings divided by the number of shares or tokens.
- Oasis Pro
- Ondo's US subsidiary group holding broker-dealer, ATS and transfer-agent registrations.
- Off-hours session
- Ondo's weekend and holiday trading window for selected stock tokens, with separate limits.
- OUSG
- Ondo Short-Term US Government Treasuries: the tokenised fund for qualified investors.
- Perpetual future (perp)
- A leveraged derivative that tracks an asset's price with no expiry date.
- Qualified purchaser
- A stricter US category than accredited investor, broadly $5 million or more in investments for an individual.
- Rebasing
- A design where your token count changes to reflect interest while the price stays fixed. rUSDY works this way.
- Redeem
- To hand tokens back to the issuer in exchange for the underlying value. The tokens are destroyed.
- Regulation S
- A US rule allowing securities to be sold outside the US without SEC registration. The reason many products exclude US persons.
- RWA
- Real-world asset: a traditional asset such as a bond, share or property represented by a token.
- Security agent
- An independent firm that holds legal rights over collateral on behalf of investors and can seize it if the issuer defaults.
- Spread
- The gap between the price you can buy at and the price you can sell at.
- SPV
- Special-purpose vehicle: a company created for one narrow job, such as issuing a particular token.
- Tokenised entitlement
- DTCC's blockchain record of a claim on a security it holds in custody.
- Total return tracker
- A token that reinvests dividends so its value reflects price moves plus income.
- Transfer agent
- The official record-keeper of who owns a security.
- TVL
- Total value locked: the dollar value of assets held in a product or protocol.
- Unlock
- The date on which previously locked tokens become free to transfer or sell.
- USDon
- Ondo's internal settlement token used when minting and redeeming stock tokens.
- USDY
- US Dollar Yield: Ondo's interest-bearing dollar note for non-US users.
- Withholding tax
- Tax taken from a dividend before it reaches a foreign investor. Usually 30% on US shares without a treaty.
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Frequently asked questions
Short answers to what people search for most.
What is Ondo in simple terms?
Ondo Finance is a company that issues blockchain tokens backed by traditional financial assets. Its main products are OUSG (a tokenised US Treasuries fund), USDY (a dollar token that passes on Treasury interest to non-US holders) and Ondo Stocks (tokens tracking more than 450 US stocks and ETFs). ONDO is a separate governance token.
What does the ONDO token do?
ONDO lets holders vote in the Ondo DAO, which governs the Flux Finance lending protocol and related Ondo Foundation matters. As of October 2026 it does not pay dividends, share company fees or grant ownership of Ondo Finance.
Who founded Ondo, and who runs it now?
Nathan Allman, a former member of Goldman Sachs' digital assets team, founded Ondo in 2021. He died unexpectedly in May 2026 aged 32. Ian De Bode, previously president, is acting chief executive. Allman's estate is challenging De Bode's position in the Delaware Court of Chancery, and the case was unresolved in October 2026.
Is Ondo safe?
No investment is risk-free. Ondo's products are backed by Treasuries and listed shares held at regulated custodians, with independent attestation. The risks lie in the legal wrappers, access restrictions, smart contracts, weekend liquidity and the company's governance dispute. The ONDO token is a volatile crypto asset and has fallen more than 75% from its 2024 high.
Can Americans use Ondo?
US persons cannot buy USDY or the offshore Ondo Stocks tokens. US qualified purchasers can use OUSG. Ondo's US-registered subsidiary Oasis Pro received authorisation in July 2026 to offer tokenised securities to US investors, and that service was still being rolled out in October 2026. The ONDO token is listed on US exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.
Where does USDY's yield come from?
From interest on short-term US Treasury bills and similar assets held by the issuer, minus the issuer's margin. The rate is reset regularly and follows US interest rates. It was shown as 3.75% on Ondo's site on 11 October 2026.
Are Ondo's tokenised stocks real shares?
Each offshore token is backed one-for-one by the real share held at a US broker-dealer, but the holder owns a note from the issuer, not the share. Dividends are reinvested after tax and there are no binding voting rights. Tokens issued onshore through Oasis Pro TA do carry ownership and voting rights.
What happened to Ondo Chain?
Ondo Chain was announced in February 2025 as a layer-1 blockchain for institutions and reached testnet. On 27 July 2026 Ondo replaced the plan with Ondo Network, an off-chain execution system that runs in secure enclaves and settles on public blockchains such as Ethereum.
How many ONDO tokens are there and when do they unlock?
The maximum supply is 10 billion. About 4.87 billion were circulating in October 2026 according to CoinGecko. Roughly 1.94 billion unlock each January; the next is scheduled for 18 January 2027, with more in 2028 and 2029.
Was Ondo investigated by the SEC?
Yes. Ondo said a confidential SEC investigation that began in 2024 was closed on 8 December 2025 with no charges. It had looked at Ondo's tokenised products and at whether ONDO is a security.
Is there an ONDO ETF?
21Shares offers an ONDO exchange-traded product in Europe and has filed to list a spot 21Shares Ondo ETF on Nasdaq in the US, most recently amending the filing in February 2026. We could not confirm a US approval as of October 2026.
How is Ondo different from BlackRock's BUIDL?
BUIDL is a single tokenised money-market fund for large institutions, managed by BlackRock and administered by Securitize. Ondo is a distributor and issuer: its OUSG fund holds BUIDL and similar funds, and it adds products for smaller and non-US investors, instant redemption and tokenised stocks.
What is the difference between USDY and OUSG?
OUSG is a fund share for qualified investors, including eligible US ones, with a $5,000 minimum for instant orders. USDY is a note for verified non-US individuals and firms, designed to circulate like a stablecoin. Both earn yield from short-term US government debt.
Where can I buy ONDO?
ONDO trades on most large exchanges, including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, OKX and Bybit, and on decentralised exchanges such as Uniswap. Check the ticker and the Ethereum contract address before buying. This is information, not a recommendation.
Sources and further reading
Everything here was checked against these sources in October 2026. Where sources disagreed we said so, and where we could not confirm something we left it out or marked it.
- Ondo Finance — product pages and live figures, read 11 October 2026.
- Ondo documentation — OUSG, USDY, Ondo Stocks eligibility, off-hours trading, fees and trust structure.
- Ondo Foundation: ONDO token — supply, allocations and lock-ups.
- Ondo blog: Introducing the Ondo Network — 27 July 2026.
- Ondo team page — titles as of October 2026.
- The Block: Nathan Allman dies unexpectedly — 25 May 2026.
- Yahoo Finance: Ondo founder Nathan Allman — biography and figures, 26 May 2026.
- IQ.wiki: Nathan Allman — career history.
- Unchained: founder's mother sues in Delaware — the control dispute.
- CoinDesk: the succession dispute — 17 September 2026; used for procedural facts only.
- Blockonomi: Ondo rejects sale report — September 2026.
- Phemex Academy: Who is Ian De Bode? — background and case summary.
- Tech Times: Ondo hires policy chief — 28 August 2026.
- The Block: $20M Series A — 27 April 2022.
- The Block: Ondo debuts 100+ tokenised stocks — 3 September 2025.
- Blockworks: Oasis Pro acquisition completed — 6 October 2025.
- The Block: Strangelove acquisition — 14 July 2025.
- The Block: SEC investigation ends without charges — 8 December 2025.
- The Block: World Liberty Financial and Ondo — 11 February 2025.
- PR Newswire via Yahoo: Oasis Pro FINRA authorisations — 23 July 2026.
- Ledger Insights: onshore US tokenised stocks — July 2026.
- DTCC: Fund/SERV adds Ondo — 16 September 2026.
- LCX News: from layer-1 plan to off-chain network — 28 July 2026.
- Genfinity: Ondo Global Markets becomes Ondo Stocks — 13 July 2026.
- PR Newswire: Ondo Perps launch — 7 July 2026.
- The Cryptonomist: Intelligent Portfolios — 25 September 2026.
- The Block: Ondo Private Markets — 6 October 2026.
- TokenPost: Ondo Stocks across Europe via Assetera — 8 October 2026.
- Coin360: Kinexys, Mastercard and Ripple redemption — 7 May 2026.
- The Block: tokenised equities market share — 17 August 2026.
- RWA.xyz: tokenised Treasuries — read 11 October 2026.
- RWA.xyz: tokenised stocks — read 11 October 2026.
- SEC EDGAR: 21Shares Ondo ETF, Form S-1/A — 6 February 2026.
- Datawallet: Ondo Finance explained — August 2026; cross-check for figures.
- Live Bitcoin News: the fee-switch debate — May 2026.
- FXStreet: Ondo meets the SEC Crypto Task Force — 24 April 2025.
- Bitrue: DTC tokenised entitlements explained — July 2026.
- HedgeThink: CLARITY Act stalls, SEC innovation exemption — September 2026.
- The Paypers: acquisition report — 4 August 2026.
- CoinGecko: Ondo (ONDO) — live price data; API id ondo-finance.
Keep exploring
Ondo is one way real-world finance is moving on-chain. The rest of the series covers the networks, oracles and rivals it depends on, in the same plain style.