Ondo Finance Unveils Ondo GM, a Tokenization Platform Aiming to Democratize Financial Markets

The company aims to revolutionize access to stocks, bonds, and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) by bringing them on-chain.

Cryptocurrency firm Ondo Finance has announced an update to its real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform, Ondo Global Markets (Ondo GM). The company aims to bring stocks, bonds, and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) on-chain, providing liquidity and accessibility akin to what stablecoins have done for fiat currencies.

Ondo Finance Unveils Ondo GM

In a statement shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, Ondo Finance highlighted the inefficiencies in the traditional investment ecosystem, such as high fees, limited access, transfer frictions, and hidden risks, which have stifled market participation and innovation for decades.

With Ondo GM, the company aims to address these issues by leveraging blockchain technology to create a more transparent and efficient financial market.

“When we first began thinking about how to tokenize exposure to publicly traded securities, we knew that the tokens should have the same liquidity as the underlying assets,” Ondo Finance stated.

Initially, the company envisioned a model where tokens represented client instructions at traditional broker-dealers within a fully permissioned system. However, after engaging with key stakeholders—including developers, traditional finance (TradFi) partners, and government officials—it became clear that a more open and accessible design was necessary.

Ondo GM’s new framework will allow issuers to create tokens with stablecoin-like transferability, ensuring liquidity while embedding compliance and security measures within the distribution layer. This paradigm shift could democratize financial markets by reducing fees, increasing accessibility, and eliminating transfer frictions.

Ondo Finance’s latest announcement cements the company’s position as a leader in the RWA tokenization space. Ondo is the fourth-largest protocol (excluding stablecoins) in total RWA value, with over $637 million in assets. The overall RWA sector thrives, surpassing $17 billion in total value.

This milestone follows Ondo Finance’s recent announcement of plans to launch a tokenized US Treasury Fund on the XRP Ledger. The move, announced just a week ago, demonstrates the company’s commitment to expanding its on-chain finance initiatives and further integrating blockchain technology with institutional-grade financial instruments.

However, concerns remain about how the venture will address challenges like fragmented liquidity and scaling institutional adoption across chains.

“Without true any-to-any interoperability, how will you address challenges like fragmented liquidity and scaling institutional adoption across chains?,” one user posed.

Notwithstanding, the Ondo GM announcement comes just one day before the highly anticipated Ondo Summit in New York. This event, commencing on Thursday and featuring among the top crypto news this week, will feature major industry players.

These include Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, and Fidelity Investments, among others, all players in the RWA ecosystem. Ondo Finance has been building momentum leading up to the summit, hinting at major developments for the financial industry.

“…a bold new vision for Wall Street will be unveiled [during the summit],” Ondo Finance had said in a post.

This suggests the summit will highlight significant advancements in bridging traditional financial markets with blockchain technology.

Despite this news, however, the reaction to Ondo Finance’s powering token is rather muted. BeInCrypto data shows ONDO is up by a modest 1.37% since the Wednesday session opened. As of this writing, it was trading for $1.35.