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Ian De Bode
How Ondo Is Bringing Stocks and Perps Onchain | Ian De Bode
- Ondo brought tokenized SpaceX stock to Ethereum within five minutes of its NASDAQ IPO on June 12, using pre-integrated market makers and RFQ (request-for-quote) infrastructure rather than AMM pools. - Tokenized stocks require real TradFi liquidity, not shallow DEX pools; Ondo charges a 5 basis-point spread over the live NASDAQ/NYSE price to cover volatility buffer and execution risk. - Ondo Perps enables equity perpetuals backed by tokenized stocks as collateral, making market makers capital-efficient (roughly 100%) versus synthetic perps with off-chain hedges (roughly 50%). - Ondo Perps uses a hybrid model: execution lives off-chain in secure enclaves verified by multiple testers; deposits and withdrawals are on-chain and non-custodial. - Most popular tokenized stocks include Circle, Micron, Tesla, and now SpaceX; offshore retail, market makers, and institutions all trade these products. - Incumbents like NASDAQ building 24-7 weekend markets on private blockchains will benefit Ondo as a client, not compete; Ondo controls distribution and DeFi integrations via wrappers.
Will Tokenized Stocks Actually Work? | Ian De Bode
- Tokenization enables programmability and 24-7 movement of assets on blockchain, making them better versions than traditional rails while providing global access to markets previously restricted by geography and fees. - Current tokenized stock implementations suffer from de-pegging issues because on-chain prices drift from actual stock exchange prices due to disconnected liquidity pools; solving this requires bridging TradFi and DeFi liquidity seamlessly. - Ondo Finance learned critical lessons from tokenizing US Treasury bonds (OUSG) that inform their approach to tokenized equities, particularly around redemption liquidity mechanics and bankruptcy remoteness. - Yield-bearing stablecoins like USDY (paying 4.29% daily) represent an evolution over traditional stablecoins and will likely capture growing share of assets, similar to how money market funds displaced checking deposits in traditional banking. - Behind closed doors at major financial institutions, skepticism persists among older executives, but smart technologists understand tokenization's inevitability and are quietly building capabilities for accelerated deployment once regulation permits. - 24-7 trading of equities is not yet an established behavior, but global events over weekends (already priced into crypto) demonstrate the absurdity of equity markets remaining closed, and younger investors will increasingly expect this functionality.