Ondo Finance, Coinbase-Backed Tokenization Project Expands To Asia Pacific, Rallies Over 60% In One Week

by Khyathi Dalal Benzinga Staff Writer

Zinger Key Points

Coinbase-backed tokenization project Ondo Finance expands to Asia Pacific, opens first regional office.
Ondo offers tokenized BlackRock funds and Treasury-backed stablecoins; analysts predict exchange listings and further growth ahead.
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Ondo Finance, a tokenization project backed by Coinbase Global Inc COIN, announced plans to expand to the Asia Pacific region. The announcement follows an over 60% price surge for the ONDO token over the last seven days.

What Happened: On Sunday, Ondo Finance announced its expansion into the Asia Pacific region with the opening of its first office in the region.

Ashwin Khosa was chosen as the vice president of Business Development for Asia Pacific, he brings his experience handling operations at Citi, Tether and Bitfinex.

Ondo Finance recently announced partnerships with Mantle and Solana SOL/USD to expand the USDY stablecoin to their blockchains.

The U.S.-based Ondo Finance is backed by venture capitalists like Founders Fund, Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures and works with institutional partners like BlackRock BLK and Morgan Stanley.

Why It Matters: Ondo’s offers four primary products:

A tokenized wrapper of Blackrock short-term US Treasuries ETF.
A tokenized wrapper of a Blackrock money market fund.
A yield-bearing alternative to traditional stablecoins, backed by short-term US Treasuries.
A lending protocol supporting real-world assets as collateral.

Ondo's Short-Term US Government Bond Fund boasts a market capitalization of $111.7 million, trailing only Franklin Templeton's Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund and Mountain Protocol's Mountain Protocol USD, with $333.8 million and $150.9 million respectively.

The expansion is particularly noteworthy in light of a recent statement made by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who predicted "the tokenization of every financial asset." This sentiment was mirrored by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who also supports tokenization of real-world assets.

What’s Next: Ondo expects users to invest in its token as a form of cash in decentralized exchanges. It is also expected to be used as collateral for lending and a means for payments and settlements.

Cryptocurrency analysts on X predict upcoming listings on major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.

Angle investor CryptoMcKenna described Ondo Finance as a "future blue chip RWA asset," while another user projects further growth for the token:

$ONDO, the most anticipated RWA project of the year, which has successfully tokenised BlackRock ETFs in a fully compliant way, just launched around $1bn FDV. Cool, makes sense.

But wait, circulating supply is only 14% with no unlocks for the next 12 months, so circulating mcap…
— Rafi_0x (@Rafi_0x) January 18, 2024