David Chen

Early stage investor

[David Chen @chendave]

We will miss you Nate! Much love to your family and friends!

[Ondo Finance @OndoFinance]

It is with profound sadness that we announce the unexpected passing of Nathan Allman, Ondo's founder. Our hearts are with his family and loved ones.

Nate’s brilliance, humility, and drive shaped every part of what Ondo is today. His belief in the power of technology to create a more open, accessible financial system lives on in everything we build. The impact he had on this industry, and on all of us personally, cannot be overstated.

Nate also helped us build a durable organization with experienced leaders across all facets of the business. Ian De Bode, Ondo Finance’s longtime President, will serve as CEO. Ian has been leading our strategy, product, and day-to-day operations for over two years and has the full confidence of the leadership team.

We will continue building what Nate started. That is the most meaningful way we know to honor him.

[David Chen @chendave]

Tokenizing stocks at Ondo Summit @BitMNR @fundstrat @JustinUS

[Ondo Finance @OndoFinance]

THE ONDO SUMMIT IS LIVE.

Watch the biggest event in tokenization with BlackRock, DTCC, The White House, & more.

Tune in now 👇 https://t.co/qnj2fmlM5r

[David Chen @chendave]

Congrats team Ostium!

[kaledora @kaledora]

Today, I'm thrilled to announce that we've raised an additional $24 million in new capital, including a $20 million Series A co-led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto, along with Wintermute Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Crucible Capital, and an incredible set of angels. They will be key to actualizing our vision: democratizing access to the highest quality and most liquid global asset markets in the world.

We started Ostium with the vision of upending the legacy CFD market, an idea that Marco and I first conceptualized trading on offshore brokers in a hacker house. These platforms happily let users like us take risky positions, but when those same positions moved against them, they’d swiftly exercise discretion over pricing, liquidations, and withdrawals. It took sending countless emails pushing brokers to honor their own terms to realize the system was broken.

From day one, our goal has been to fuse two core values into a single product:

(1) the transparency and self-custody of crypto, and

(2) the fair pricing and deep liquidity of traditional markets.

Those two north stars have shaped every architectural decision we’ve made since.

Scaling Liquidity

To scale that model without compromise, Ostium is expanding its liquidity partnerships. The protocol will now be able to support dramatic increases in liquidity, open interest, and asset coverage, allowing us to expand into the most liquid markets in the world. This growth is supported by a core set of liquidity partners able to hedge flows across a diverse range of traditional assets while integrating directly with crypto rails.

Today, Ostium’s main hedging partner services the protocol by managing the bulk of these flows, hedging exposures when they exceed certain thresholds, and ensuring open interest doesn’t skew too heavily in a particular direction. That hedging capacity will be expanded materially with new liquidity integrations. There's also a new, comprehensive dashboard detailing the live and historical hedging positions on the protocol, allowing anyone to track the residual exposure OLP is taking on at any time. Check it out at ostiscan(.)xyz.

In the coming months, the Ostium protocol will evolve from a single-quote RFQ system into a competitive quoting environment, wherein makers will compete directly at the protocol level to quote and hedge large orders. Their participation will be gated and their economic alignment with the protocol ensured via an inbuilt native staking mechanism and slashing system.

Why We Chose This Architecture

Our architectural choices follow directly from this vision.

Building a fully onchain execution engine inherently delivers transparency and self-custody. But crypto rails today often make fair pricing and deep liquidity harder, especially for longer-tail traditional assets.

The result is that while many traders may think they are trading a multi-trillion dollar market like the gold market, they wind up in fact betting on an illiquid derivative thereof, subject to the often unreliable liquidity dynamics of the crypto markets.

As a result, we opted to build a single-quote RFQ model, not an orderbook exchange. Ostium quotes directly from a specialized oracle, enabling the protocol to price assets at the underlying market's price (or very close to it) and offer the closest thing onchain to the execution depth that a trader would get in the real markets.

Points Program Updates

In line with this expansion, two changes to the points program to double down on our core focus:

1. CFD trader onboarding boost
If you’re a traditional CFD trader and want to Break Up With Your Broker to trade onchain, you’ll be eligible to receive a 2x boost on all points earned for the first 30 days from signup with Ostium. If this is you (or any of your friends), please fill out the form on Ostium’s landing page and forward broker affiliation to [email protected]. (Note: not available in U.S. / for U.S. traders)

2. TradFi boost
From now on, we will be increasing points program scores on all traditional assets - stocks, indices, FX, & commodities. This is the first and only trading venue in DeFi today with over 95% of open interest in traditional markets, and we will be doubling down on our core focus.

Finally: if you want to work with a brilliant team, we're hiring the very best across a variety of positions. We look for exceptional and spiky people. If this is you, join us. (https://jobs.ashbyhq(.)com/ostium)

[Nathan Allman 🌊 @nathanlallman]

Ondo Global Markets is finally here! For us, this has been years in the making.

Since announcing last year, we’ve seen many other tokenized stock offerings enter the market. But the big breakthrough hasn’t happened yet.

Why? Two things: accessibility and liquidity.

Many of the existing platforms are still walled gardens.

All users have to be onboarded with a single party and can't self-custody their tokens, take them off platform, or use them in DeFi protocols. In some cases these platforms are stepping stones to hopefully allow for some of these features in the future but they are not there today.

Ondo GM is different, since the tokens are freely transferable (outside the US and subject to certain jurisdictional restrictions) from day one, just like stablecoins.

Now, there are some other platforms that have also structured their tokens as freely transferable, like xStocks. However, where these tokens fall flat is on liquidity.

These tokens have relatively high friction mint and redeem processes, and rely on a small handful of market makers to hold large inventory of these tokens on various decentralized and centralized exchanges. Secondary market purchasers can generally only access what market makers are already holding in inventory, leading to limited liquidity and sometimes huge dislocations between token prices and underlying stock prices. This model of relying on prefunded liquidity venues simply does not scale to hundreds of equities.

GM solves this issue by enabling instant, atomic minting and burning of Ondo tokenized stocks & ETFs in exchange for stablecoins. Instant minting and burning is what allows for arbitragers to easily keep the prices on various secondary market venues in line with primary market prices.

Additionally, instant minting and burning allows for GM to separate trading and settlement, as is typically done in TradFi. For example, an eligible trader can put on an order to buy or sell some GM tokenized stock, and then subsequently that trader's order can be settled atomically and instantly. Only after a trade is agreed on is the stock token minted and the underlying stock purchased. Through this sequencing, GM is able to pass to users almost the same liquidity that it can access in underlying markets.

The magnitude of the difference in price impact from the two models is profound. For example, purchasing $200k of SPYx on Jupiter (the most liquid asset from xStocks on its most liquid venue) would entail more than 200 bps price impact. If the S&P 500 yields 10% a year on average, this would mean you lose ~2.5 months worth of returns swapping into the asset, and another ~2.5 months swapping out. By contrast, GM investors can mint $200k worth of SPYon for roughly a 1-3 bps price difference from TradFi markets (depending on market conditions).

After a lot of hard work we’re proud to be able to unveil this solution today, bringing highly accessible and liquid tokenized stocks to market.

Some caveats:
We’re rolling out gradually.
• Most tokens capped at $200k/trade (or $100k off-hours)
• Some low volatility tokens allow up to $1M
• Multiple trades can be submitted for larger orders
We’ll scale limits substantially as the system proves itself.

✨

Markets should be open, liquid, and global. With Ondo GM, that future is here.

@OndoFinance

✨

[kaledora @kaledora]

Ostium is now live on public mainnet.

Our North Star: make macro tradable—any asset, any strategy, any narrative.

[Ondo Finance @OndoFinance]

We’re thrilled to announce that Ian De Bode has joined @OndoFinance as our new Chief Strategy Officer. As the former @McKinsey head of digital assets, Ian brings extensive experience.

https://t.co/favPFP7Tbk

"I am honored to join Ondo Finance at this pivotal juncture," expressed Mr. De Bode. "As we witness the dawn of tokenization reshaping the financial landscape to be more inclusive, transparent, and efficient, I am excited to contribute my expertise. Institutional interest is at a turning point, and I am excited to strengthen new and existing institutional relationships and further advance Ondo's visionary product suite."

"We are thrilled to welcome Ian to our team," stated @nathanlallman, CEO and Founder of Ondo Finance. "With his outstanding track record and forward-thinking approach to onchain finance, Ian brings a wealth of expertise that will undoubtedly catalyze transformative growth for an exciting new initiative and the broader ecosystem.”

Welcome, Ian!

This latest announcement follows a series of significant hires made by Ondo in the first quarter of this year. Notably, Chris Tyrrell, former @GoldmanSachs Head of Digital Assets Compliance, joined as Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, while Ashwin Khosa, previously of Institutional BD at @tether, assumed the role of VP of Business Development, and @KatieAWheeler, a former @BlackRock VP and @circle’s Director of Business Development in Web3, joined as VP of Partnerships.

[Ondo Finance @OndoFinance]

1/ 🚨 @OndoFinance is solving the RWA liquidity problem 🚨

Introducing Ondo Global Markets, a platform to bring all publicly traded securities onchain with native access to traditional securities exchange liquidity (e.g. Nasdaq/NYSE/LSE).

https://t.co/5NGN64cYPA

[Ondo Finance @OndoFinance]

Tokens wrapping ETFs 🤝 ETFs wrapping tokens

[David Chen @chendave]

🚀

[Ostium @Ostium]

We're thrilled to announce we've raised $3.5M, co-led by @generalcatalyst and @localglobevc, with participation from SIG, @alliancedao, Balaji Srinivasan and others!

We're building the first decentralized perpetuals exchange for Real World Assets ⬇️

https://t.co/X9ffyom58o

[Ostium @Ostium]

Thrilled to be partnering with the @chaoslabs team on mechanism design, risk management, & economic security!

We're building a protocol engineered from the ground up to cater to the unique features of Real World Assets. Ensuring economic security is critical to that mission 🔐

[David Chen @chendave]

USDC killer launching today!

[Nathan Allman 🌊 @nathanlallman]

🚨 Introducing @OndoFinance USD Yield (USDY), the world’s first tokenized note secured by US Treasuries and bank deposits.

🚫 NOTE: USDY is not, and may not be, offered, sold or otherwise made available in the US or to US persons. USDY also has not been registered under the US Securities Act of 1933.

📈 USDY is a bearer instrument, offering a similar degree of accessibility as stablecoins while paying holders a variable yield, starting at 5% APY.

🏦 USDY is senior secured debt of Ondo USDY LLC, a special purpose vehicle designed to be bankruptcy-remote from day one.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Individuals and institutions, with no accreditation requirements, can onboard directly with Ondo in order to mint or redeem USDY on a daily basis.

🌐 After a 40-50 day waiting period, USDY tokens can be transferred on-chain to investors who meet applicable requirements (including agreeing to certain terms and being a non-US person, outside the US, and not subject to other jurisdictional prohibitions).

For more information, please visit: https://t.co/VxdJaTt0OV

[Nathan Allman 🌊 @nathanlallman]

Excited to see this proposal to add fUSDC from @FluxDeFi as collateral to @AaveAave. Adding support for treasuries-backed yield (through @OndoFinance) as collateral on Aave should improve lender yield and reduce risk.

[David Chen @chendave]

Congrats @futurenomics!

[Sam (Knicks in 5) @futurenomics]

Excited to be out of stealth https://t.co/SvxaNMlBFA

[Nathan Allman 🌊 @nathanlallman]

Announcing the tokenization of money market funds—first of its kind that will be usable on-chain! In addition to cash management, OMMF is an attractive dollar/stablecoin substitute for OTC settlement and collateral, bringing the safety, income, and stability of government MMFs.

[Nathan Allman 🌊 @nathanlallman]

1/ We have been getting a lot of questions on whether the SEC's likely view that public stablecoins are securities has any negative impacts for OUSG, @OndoFinance's tokenized U.S. Treasuries product. The short answer is no, we have always treated OUSG as a security...

[Flux Finance @FluxDeFi]

1/ We are delighted to announce that Flux Finance is live! Flux is bringing US Treasuries yield on-chain to permissionless lenders everywhere, creating the substrate upon which a new on-chain economy can form.
https://t.co/c7i6mqpfy8

[Justin Bram @JustinCBram]

Flux will bring the risk-free Treasury rate to anyone on-chain permissionlessly and with no KYC. But how is this possible? 👇

[SebVentures @SebVentures]

And that's how the risk-free rate of TradFi (permissioned KYC/ALM) trickle down to DeFi (permissionless no KYC/ALM).
KYC people buy the $OUG of @OndoFinance https://t.co/jx8lly9l1Y and refinance it with permissionless non KYCed $USDC.
Obv, KYCed people will earn a spread.
🚀

[Nathan Allman 🌊 @nathanlallman]

1/ 🚨 @OndoFinance is bringing US Treasuries and institutional-grade bonds on-chain 🚨

We are making it possible for stablecoin holders to invest in US Treasuries through a daily liquid, bankruptcy-remote, tokenized fund with regulated service providers.

https://t.co/9D6qYpZyg3

[Luke Kim @lukekim]

🚀 Excited to announce our 13.5M Seed Round for @spice_ai

We're building https://t.co/azdFQ8m7eS - data and AI infrastructure for web3 with a mission to help developers build data and AI-driven applications.

We're also hiring, check out https://t.co/3KVu2JKLEb - DMs open!