Involvement from Franklin Templeton, Wellington Management, WisdomTree, McKinsey, and Others Reflects Growing Institutional Interest in Blockchain and Tokenization
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ondo Finance, a leader in blockchain-based financial innovation, today unveiled a suite of infrastructure products designed to bring capital markets onchain, bringing the transparency, efficiency, and accessibility enabled by blockchain technology to institutional-grade finance. At the first-ever Ondo Summit in New York City, Ondo provided details on the key pillars of this strategy, including Ondo Chain, its newly announced Layer 1 blockchain, purpose-built to support institutional-grade onchain financial markets.
"Financial markets are overdue for an upgrade," said Nathan Allman, CEO of Ondo Finance. "Today's financial systems are plagued by high fees, limited access, and operational inefficiencies. At Ondo, we are addressing these challenges head-on by creating a unified ecosystem that bridges the best of traditional finance with the capabilities of blockchain technology.”
Ondo Chain: The Infrastructure for Onchain Financial Markets
Ondo Chain is a newly announced Layer 1 blockchain that is designed to accelerate the creation of institutional-grade financial markets onchain. Ondo Chain will combine the security and compliance features of the types of permissioned blockchains often used by financial institutions with the openness and accessibility of public chains like Ethereum. Validators responsible for confirming transactions will be permissioned. In addition to confirming blockchain transactions, these validators will also help ensure that other data important to well-functioning financial markets — such as asset prices and proof that tokens are adequately backed by their underlying assets — are accurate and up-to-date. Other key features include the ability to stake tokenized real-world assets to ensure network security and native omnichain bridging, allowing tokenized assets to move seamlessly between Ondo Chain and other supported chains.
"Ondo Chain is designed to meet the highest institutional standards while remaining open for developers and innovators,” said Allman. ”It tightly couples onchain and offchain infrastructure, reducing cost, enhancing security, and ultimately enabling a better user experience. For these reasons, we anticipate Ondo Chain becoming the hub for the DeFi ecosystem centered on tokenized assets.”
In parallel, Ondo is also launching a set of tools to enable issuers to offer other real-world assets, including tokenized securities, on Ondo Chain. These capabilities are based upon Ondo’s extensive experience tokenizing US Treasuries and include features that assist with many aspects of tokenization, including permissioning, proof-of-jurisdiction, and other compliance-related issues.
Together, Ondo’s blockchain and asset technologies are designed to work together to make real-world assets more broadly accessible and usable in decentralized finance, enabling a more inclusive and efficient financial system for everyone.
Industry Involvement Continues to Grow
The Ondo Summit also highlights the growing interest in tokenization from the traditional financial industry. Today, Ondo announced that several leading institutions — including Franklin Templeton, Wellington Management, WisdomTree, Google Cloud, ABN Amro, Aon, and McKinsey — are joining the Ondo Ecosystem and will advise on the design of Ondo Chain. The Ondo Ecosystem already includes notable industry leaders such as BlackRock, PayPal and Morgan Stanley.
“We’re delighted to have these industry leaders involved to help ensure that Ondo Chain meets the stringent requirements of institutional investors,” said Ian De Bode, Ondo Finance’s Chief Strategy Officer. “Their involvement underscores our commitment to building truly institutional-grade infrastructure that lays the groundwork to accelerate the formation of institutional-grade financial markets onchain.”
This trend is further bolstered by the sessions at today’s Ondo Summit event, with presenters including BlackRock, Fidelity, BNY Mellon, and the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC). Presenters also include Caroline Pham, acting head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and head of the digital asset subcommittee; and Patrick McHenry, former chair of the House Financial Services Committee.
The Trend Towards Tokenization
Ondo’s chain and other tools are designed to work together to make real-world assets globally accessible and usable in decentralized finance. The tools enable issuers to more easily offer tokenized assets onchain, while Ondo Chain is designed to provide the institutional-grade infrastructure to enable those assets to be used at scale. Together, they lay the foundations for a more inclusive and efficient financial system.
“We believe that the movement of capital markets onchain will bring tremendous benefits to investors around the world,” said Allman. “Together, this suite of tools creates the foundational infrastructure that paves the way for trillions of dollars in value to transition onchain and lays the foundations for the global adoption of tokenized assets.”
About Ondo Finance
Ondo is a blockchain technology company. Its mission is to accelerate the transition to an open economy by building the platforms, assets, and infrastructure that bring financial markets onchain. For more information, visit https://ondo.finance
The technologies referenced herein, including Ondo Chain, have not launched. Nothing herein constitutes any offer to sell, or any solicitation of an offer to buy, any assets. Acquiring tokens, including tokenized securities and other tokenized real-world assets, will involve risks. A holder may incur losses, including total loss of their purchase price. Past performance will not be an indication of future results. Additional terms and conditions will apply. Please consult each token issuer’s disclosures, terms and conditions for applicable details.
Contacts
Ali Adkins
ondo@wachsman.com