Ondo Global Markets: All You Need to Know

Ondo Finance launched Ondo Global Markets, a platform that allows non-U.S. investors to buy and sell tokenized versions of U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) onchain on Sept. 3. The service, available on Ethereum at launch, offers more than 100 tokenized assets and plans to expand to over 1,000 by the end of 2025.

The platform provides access to international investors across Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Users in the United States and the United Kingdom are excluded due to regulatory restrictions.

This launch represents one of the largest expansions of tokenized equities to date, bridging traditional securities with blockchain infrastructure while maintaining liquidity and investor protections.

How Ondo Global Markets Works

Ondo Global Markets mirrors the performance of U.S.-listed securities through tokenized representations. Each token is fully backed by the corresponding stock or ETF held with U.S.-registered broker-dealers.

When an international investor purchases a tokenized Apple share (ticker: AAPLon), the platform acquires the underlying Apple stock. The custodian holds the asset, and the investor receives a tokenized version representing full economic exposure.

These tokens are designed as total return trackers, meaning dividends and other corporate actions are reflected in the onchain token’s price. Investors can mint or redeem tokens with stablecoins at the underlying market value during trading hours and transfer them across wallets and protocols 24/7.

Key Features of Ondo Global Markets

• Broad Asset Range: Over 100 tokenized U.S. equities and ETFs at launch, scaling to more than 1,000 by year-end.
• Asset Backing: Tokens are secured by underlying securities held with regulated broker-dealers.
• Inherited Liquidity: Liquidity is drawn directly from traditional exchanges, minimizing slippage.
• DeFi Integration: Tokens can be used in lending, borrowing, and collateral protocols.
• Institutional-Grade Safeguards: Independent third-party verification of reserves, bankruptcy-remote structures, and a security interest held by a trustee.
• APIs for Developers: Wallets and exchanges can integrate tokenized stocks into their apps with a single connection.

Why Ondo’s Model Stands Out

Many tokenized equity products suffer from poor liquidity or limited transferability. Ondo attempts to address these issues by inheriting liquidity from the traditional exchanges of the underlying assets. This design ensures minimal slippage and reduces pricing gaps.

For example, if the price of tokenized Apple stock diverges from the real share price, arbitrage opportunities bring prices back into alignment. This mechanism helps avoid the price dislocation seen in some other tokenized offerings, which at times traded at premiums of 10–15% over real equities.

Ondo also prioritizes transferability. Unlike siloed platforms that confine assets to closed systems, Ondo tokens can move across DeFi protocols, wallets, and custodians without restriction.

Supported Infrastructure and Partnerships

Ondo Global Markets integrates with major crypto infrastructure providers, making the assets usable across a broad ecosystem. Supported wallets and platforms include:

• Bitget Wallet
• Trust Wallet
• OKX Wallet
• Gate
• Ledger
• BitGo
• 1inch
• Fireblocks

Chainlink provides price oracles, while LayerZero enables cross-chain interoperability. The platform also benefits from Block Street’s liquidity rails, which support borrowing, hedging, and securities lending.

Expansion Plans

Ondo plans to expand beyond Ethereum with support for BNB Chain, Solana, and its own Ondo Chain, a layer-1 blockchain built for real-world assets (RWAs). By year-end, the offering is expected to include more than 1,000 tokenized assets.

Future roadmap items include:

• Prime Brokerage: Borrowing and lending directly against tokenized holdings.
• Onchain Wealth Management: Portfolio rebalancing across stocks, bonds, and crypto.
• Cross-Chain Issuance: Native multi-chain support for tokenized securities.
• Staking and Collateral: Tokenized assets usable for chain security and as lending collateral.

Competition and Market Context

Ondo is not alone in the push to tokenize equities. Robinhood, Kraken, Gemini, and others have launched or announced similar initiatives. Coinbase and eToro are also exploring tokenized stock offerings.

However, regulatory uncertainty has challenged some of these efforts, with concerns over shareholder rights and fragmented compliance. Ondo’s approach, which uses broker-dealer custody and independent daily verification, is aimed at addressing those concerns while making the assets usable across DeFi.

Tokenization of real-world assets is gaining traction beyond equities. Treasury bills, private credit, and real estate are increasingly being issued onchain. Analysts from McKinsey & Company expect the market for tokenized assets could exceed $2 trillion by 2030.

Why This Launch Matters

Ondo Global Markets represents a significant step toward merging traditional securities with public blockchains. By offering tokenized versions of widely recognized U.S. stocks and ETFs, it extends access to investors outside the United States who previously faced barriers to participation.

The platform is built with both liquidity and investor protections in mind. Its design avoids the pitfalls of earlier tokenized stock products while providing seamless integration with decentralized finance applications.

Conclusion

Ondo Finance’s launch of Ondo Global Markets brings more than 100 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs onchain, with plans to scale rapidly across multiple blockchains. The platform offers institutional-grade protections, inherited liquidity from traditional exchanges, and broad integration with wallets and custodians.

For international investors, it opens access to U.S. markets in a tokenized format, combining the efficiency of blockchain with the reliability of traditional financial infrastructure.

Resources:

1. Ondo Global Markets announcement: https://blog.ondo.finance/global-markets-is-live/

2. McKinsey & Company report for tokenized assets: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/from-ripples-to-waves-the-transformational-power-of-tokenizing-assets

3. Ondo Finance blog: https://blog.ondo.finance/