Tokenized real-world asset (RWA) platform Ondo Finance is moving $95 million of assets to BlackRock’s brand-new tokenized fund to allow instant settlements for its own U.S. Treasury-backed token (OUSG), Nathan Allman, CEO of Ondo Finance, said Wednesday in a Telegram interview with CoinDesk.
Until now, Ondo’s OUSG token was backed by BlackRock’s iShares Short Treasury Bond exchange-traded fund (ETF), which traded only during traditional market hours, opposite to crypto’s around-the-clock nature. The allocation allows Ondo to significantly speed up subscription and redemption time to instant settlement at any day from the T+2 days, an Ondo blog post read.
“Many investors have been so far hesitant to use OUSG because of the time it used to take to redeem, and given the 24/7/365 and volatile nature of crypto markets and the often sudden need for capital that arises from that,” Allman said in the interview. “OUSG will become significantly more usable as a store-of-value and collateral asset within the crypto ecosystem.”
Ondo has already transferred $15 million of OUSG backing assets to BlackRock’s BUIDL over the past days, and plans to move another $80 million by the end of Wednesday, Allman added.
Ondo’s action marks the first example of a crypto protocol leveraging asset management giant BlackRock’s tokenized fund offering, which debuted last week. The fund, represented by the Ethereum-based BUIDL token backed by U.S. Treasury bills and repo agreements, is targeted for white-listed, institutional clients and requires at least $5 million minimum allocation. While the strict requirements prohibits smaller investors to invest in BlackRock’s BUIDL, it allows other platforms such as Ondo to leverage the fund for its own retail-facing offerings.