Ondo Finance is a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) platform created to broaden access to DeFi yields and cater to users with different risk preferences. It accomplishes this through a permissionless protocol that facilitates the creation of risk-isolated, fixed-yield loans backed by yield-generating crypto assets. Ondo Finance was co-founded in March 2021 by former Goldman Sachs employee Nathan Allman. [1]
Ondo is a protocol that facilitates the adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) among mainstream investors by facilitating precise risk exchange. In a period of historically low interest rates, Ondo Finance aims to broaden DeFi adoption by offering risk-averse investors the opportunity to access DeFi yield with transparent and mitigated risk. At the same time, it enables DeFi-native investors to access higher potential returns. Ondo aims to democratize institutional-grade financial products and services for all. They see blockchain technology as key to enhancing the infrastructure and accessibility of financial offerings. Ondo believes in blending technical advancements with established practices from traditional finance, including investor safeguards, transparent reporting, legal compliance, robust product structuring, collaboration with top service providers, and excellent client support. To achieve this vision, Ondo operates an asset management division responsible for creating and overseeing tokenized financial products alongside a technology division focused on developing decentralized finance protocols. [1][2]
The Ondo Token Bridge facilitates seamless transfers of Ondo tokens across different blockchains. In collaboration with leading bridging technologies like Axelar and LayerZero, we have integrated cutting-edge multi-chain communication primitives and a novel Ondo risk management layer. This ensures that Ondo tokenholders can bridge Real World Assets (RWAs) safely and efficiently.
Transferring assets across chains has historically presented significant security challenges. Building a system to support cross-chain bridging of RWAs requires robust security measures. Ondo addresses this challenge by leveraging established, battle-tested bridge infrastructure while adding a validation layer to all bridge transactions.
Key features of the Ondo Token Bridge include security that scales with the bridged amount, utilizing proven bridge technologies, and a mechanism where bridged Ondo tokens are not locked in a smart contract on the source chain. Instead, they are burned on the source chain and re-minted on the destination chain, eliminating a common attack vector found in other lock-and-mint token bridges. [3]
Flux Finance, initially developed by Ondo Finance, has been sold but remains part of their product portfolio. As a fork of Compound V2, it functions as a peer-to-peer lending protocol supporting permissionless and permissioned assets. Users deposit stablecoins to earn the supply APY, receiving fTokens in return, representing the right to reclaim deposited assets plus interest upon redemption. These yield-bearing assets have integrated into DeFi, enabling users to leverage them on protocols like Pendle or Penpie for layered yield strategies, potentially advancing the RWA space significantly. [4]
The central value proposition of Flux Finance lies in two aspects. Firstly, it allows users to earn supply-side APYs on stablecoins, catering to the liquidity demands of OUSG holders. OUSG holders can use OUSG as collateral, borrow USDC, and leverage up on OUSG, ensuring high utilization rates. Additionally, Flux Finance enables accredited investors to access leverage on risk-free assets, exploiting the difference between Treasury yield and borrowing rate. In contrast, ordinary users can access solid yields by leveraging their minted fTokens in DeFi. [4]
OMMF is a USD-pegged security token backed by US money market funds, offering interest payments to holders in additional OMMF tokens. While limited to qualified purchasers and accredited investors, retail users can access OMMF through Flux Finance. Unlike OUSG, which appreciates, OMMF maintains a stable $1 value, redeemable on any business day. Interest is distributed daily in new tokens. This stability makes OMMF suitable for settlement and collateral in OTC trading and lending, facilitated by its 24/7 compatibility and instant subscriptions and redemptions, supported by small stablecoin reserves on-chain. [5][6]
ONDO is the governance token for Ondo Finance and its Flux Finance protocol, empowering the user community to steer the company's direction. Token holders can make crucial platform decisions by suggesting and voting on updates. The token has a total supply of 10 billion and, initially, a pre-sale distributed the ONDO token to a broad community base. After being unlocked for trading, it swiftly became available on leading cryptocurrency exchanges. [7]
OUSG (Ondo Short-Term US Government Treasuries) offers access to short-term US Treasuries with tokenized subscriptions and redemptions available 24/7. US Treasury bills provide a highly secure investment avenue with stable returns and ample liquidity. Widely acknowledged as the safest and most liquid investment choice, US Treasury bills are favored by investors seeking safety, stability, and liquidity. [8]
Currently, most of OUSG's portfolio is held in the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), with the rest allocated to BlackRock’s FedFund (TFDXX), bank deposits, and USDC for liquidity needs. Potential future additions to the portfolio may include other US Treasury funds or direct investments in US Treasuries. OUSG shares are tokenized and can be transferred at any time. [8]
Rebasing adjusts the total token supply by multiplying the base number of tokens by a "rebasing factor." Rebasing is commonly used to promote price stability and distribute yield. It efficiently adjusts all token holder balances by introducing user "shares," akin to shares of stock, representing a claim on a percentage of the total supply of tokens. [9]
rOUSG represents a type of 'Wrapped' OUSG, where each rOUSG token corresponds to a certain amount of "regular" OUSG locked within a wrapper contract. For instance, if 100K USDC is invested into rOUSG, the OUSG tokens are directed to a wrapper contract instead of a wallet. This contract locks the OUSG, mints the equivalent amount of rOUSG, and sends it to the wallet. Conversely, redeeming rOUSG involves routing the tokens to the wrapper contract, burning them, and unlocking the corresponding OUSG tokens. These OUSG tokens are returned to the OUSG contract for burning, and the appropriate USDC amount is received. [4]
The total supply of OUSG comprises two types: [4]
The US Dollar Yield Token (USDY) is a tokenized note backed by short-term US Treasuries and bank demand deposits. This asset aims to grant non-US individuals and institutional investors direct entry to a fully compliant, interest-bearing, USD-denominated stablecoin. [6]
USDY offers a novel combination of stablecoin accessibility and yield generation. Its operation involves a meticulous process, including KYC onboarding, fund depositing, cohort assignment, certificate generation, and token minting. The redemption process is equally structured to comply with US laws and regulations. USDY differs from traditional stablecoins in several ways, including bankruptcy remoteness, yield potential, asset security, regulatory status, and third-party oversight. [10]
Compared to other Ondo products like OUSG and OMMF, USDY targets a different audience with distinct use cases and structural nuances. While OUSG and OMMF cater primarily to institutional investors with specific geographic and accreditation requirements, USDY is more accessible and offers different return and risk profiles. [10]
On November 24th, 2021, Ondo Finance and Fei Protocol announced a partnership with several cutting-edge DeFi protocols to enhance decentralized exchange liquidity. Through the Liquidity-as-a-Service ("LaaS") offering, protocols could transition away from traditional liquidity mining campaigns, deemed unsustainable and costly. Fei Protocol initially committed $50M to the program, later matched by $50M from partners, totaling $100M to be deployed over the next few weeks. The first vaults from Universal Market Access (UMA), Gro Protocol (GRO), and ShapeShift (FOX) were deployed on the same day, with NEAR (NEAR) set to launch in the coming days. [11]
On December 27th, 2021, Frax's governance process approved a partnership with Ondo. This collaboration aimed to enhance Ondo's Liquidity-as-a-Service offering by utilizing FRAX, provided by the protocol itself, as liquidity for token issuers. As per the proposal's design, a portion of the future algorithmic expansion of the FRAX stablecoin would be minted into Frax-as-a-Service vaults as required, with no upfront costs for participation from Frax. [12]
On May 4th, 2022, the Angle community approved a partnership with Paladin to leverage Ondo’s Liquidity-as-a-Service offering. This collaboration aimed to utilize agEUR as liquidity for PAL. Angle became the pioneering project to utilize Liquidity-as-a-Service with a euro-pegged stablecoin, introducing the agEUR-as-a-Service (agEUR-aaS) offering to bolster liquidity on decentralized exchanges. This initiative complemented Ondo's existing Liquidity-as-a-Service program by enabling liquidity building in a Euro-denominated stablecoin. [13]
On July 13th, 2023, Ondo partnered with Polygon Labs, a development team for Ethereum scaling on the Polygon protocols. The aim was to promote adopting institutional-grade products within the DeFi ecosystem. This collaboration united Ondo's expertise and cutting-edge technologies with the scalability and cost-efficiency of the Polygon PoS protocol, marking a step toward reshaping traditional financial markets. [14]
On January 28, 2025, Ondo Finance disclosed plans to introduce its tokenized U.S. Treasuries offering, the Ondo Short-Term U.S. Government Bond Fund (OUSG), to the XRP Ledger (XRPL). This development adds XRPL to the list of blockchain environments through which Ondo distributes tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
OUSG is a blockchain-based representation of short-term U.S. government securities, structured through a wrapper linked to the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). The deployment on XRPL utilizes the network’s infrastructure for low transaction costs, fast settlement finality, and identity management features, including Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials.
The planned implementation includes continuous (24/7) issuance and redemption mechanisms, supported by the RLUSD stablecoin, issued on XRPL. Initial liquidity provision has been arranged through contributions from both Ondo Finance and Ripple, aiming to establish early market availability on XRPL-compatible decentralized exchanges.
This move places XRPL alongside Ethereum and Solana in the set of blockchains integrated into Ondo's distribution strategy for tokenized fixed-income products. All offerings remain subject to relevant legal frameworks, including restrictions tied to investor eligibility as required under U.S. securities regulations. [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
In February 2025, Ondo Finance was integrated into Mastercard’s Multi-Token Network (MTN), becoming the first provider of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) to participate in the network. MTN is a blockchain-based infrastructure designed to support interoperability and regulated transactions involving various forms of tokenized assets.
As part of the integration, Ondo Finance’s short-term U.S. Treasury fund, OUSG, was made accessible within MTN. This enabled the representation of U.S. Treasuries in tokenized form within a permissioned blockchain environment, operating under compliance-focused parameters defined by the MTN framework.
MTN provides a controlled structure for entities to develop and test applications using tokenized assets, including bank-issued tokens, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and RWAs. The onboarding of Ondo introduced tokenized Treasury instruments to this environment.
Mastercard’s stated objective for MTN includes establishing infrastructure standards, governance models, and interoperability protocols for digital asset transactions. The integration of Ondo aligns with this structure by contributing tokenized fixed-income assets for use in MTN-supported pilot programs and experimental applications.
This development represents the initial inclusion of RWAs, specifically tokenized U.S. Treasuries, within the MTN network. [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
In May 2025, JPMorgan conducted a transaction involving tokenized U.S. Treasury securities on a public blockchain. The assets were issued by Ondo Finance and settled on the Ondo Chain testnet, a Layer 1 network designed for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
The transaction used a cross-chain Delivery versus Payment (DvP) mechanism to facilitate the simultaneous transfer of assets and payments. The payment leg was managed through Kinexys Digital Payments, JPMorgan’s blockchain-based settlement infrastructure, formerly known as JPM Coin, operating on a permissioned network. The asset leg, composed of Ondo’s tokenized short-term Treasury fund (OUSG), was settled on the public Ondo Chain. Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and Runtime Environment (CRE) were used to coordinate operations across the different blockchain systems.
The transaction took place as part of Project Guardian, an initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to examine the application of tokenized assets and decentralized finance in regulated financial environments. It was conducted as a technical demonstration of interoperability between private institutional networks and public blockchain infrastructure. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]