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Ondo Finance: what it is, how USDY and OUSG work, and who runs it
Ondo Finance is a US company that tokenizes traditional assets: Treasury-backed products such as USDY and OUSG, and tokenized US stocks and ETFs sold to investors outside the United States. Ondo Finance Inc., a Delaware corporation, runs the platform, while the tokens themselves are issued by separate vehicles such as Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited and the Ondo I LP fund.
By Mara Okonkwo · Facts checked Nov 1, 2026
What Ondo Finance is and who runs it
Ondo Finance is a company that turns traditional financial assets, chiefly US Treasury exposure and US-listed stocks and ETFs, into tokens that live on public blockchains. Its documentation describes two arms: an asset-management arm that creates and manages tokenized products, and a technology arm that builds the onchain infrastructure and protocols around them.
"Ondo" covers several distinct legal entities, and which one you deal with depends on the product:
- Ondo Finance Inc. is a Delaware corporation. It is the party to the website and app terms of service, and it provides tokenization services to the issuers.
- Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited is a British Virgin Islands special purpose vehicle (SPV) that issues Ondo tokenized stocks, Intelligent Portfolio tokens and, since 15 December 2025, USDY. Ondo's docs say it is 90.01% owned by Flux Finance Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ondo Foundation, and 9.99% owned by Ondo Finance Inc.
- Ondo I LP is the fund behind OUSG. Its general partner (Ondo I GP LLC) and its investment manager (Ondo Capital Management LLC) are Delaware LLCs wholly owned by Ondo Finance.
- The Ondo Foundation is a separate organization with its own website, ondo.foundation. It owns Flux Finance, the lending protocol Ondo originally built and later sold to it.
The ONDO governance token is a different thing again; it is covered further down.
Ondo's products: USDY, OUSG and Ondo Stocks
The product line has grown from tokenized Treasuries into tokenized public and private equity exposure. Each product has its own issuer, eligibility rules and redemption process.
| Product | What it is | Issuer | Who can buy from the issuer |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDY (and rUSDY) | Tokenized note secured by short-term US Treasuries, Treasury ETF shares or bank demand deposits, depending on issuance date | Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited | Eligible non-US individuals and institutions |
| OUSG | Tokenized limited partnership interest in a fund holding short-term US Treasury and GSE exposure | Ondo I LP | Verified accredited investors who are also qualified purchasers |
| Ondo Stocks | Tokens tracking the total return of US stocks and ETFs, marked with an "on" suffix (TSLA becomes TSLAon) | Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited | Eligible non-US investors; some countries limit it to professional investors |
| Intelligent Portfolios | One token backed by a weighted basket of Ondo tokenized stocks and ETFs, rebalanced about quarterly | Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited | Eligible non-US investors |
| Private Markets Notes | Unsecured tokenized notes whose single payout is tied to a private company's share value at a liquidity event | PM Issuer Co (BVI) Limited | Eligible investors under the note's offering documents |
OUSG's portfolio is invested in funds run by managers such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree and Fidelity, plus bank deposits and USDC for liquidity. Ondo's trust page states that most of the fund's assets are currently in BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). This is the link behind searches pairing Ondo with BlackRock. BlackRock is also the model provider for one Intelligent Portfolio (BLKHIon).
How USDY and OUSG work
Both products work the same way at the core. You complete onboarding and identity checks, deposit stablecoins, and receive tokens priced from the value of the underlying assets. Redemption runs the same route in reverse.
- Mint. USDY is minted with USDC; bank wires are possible for $100,000 or more. OUSG accepts USDC or PYUSD. For a deposit of 100,000 USDC at a net asset value (NAV) of $100 per token, Ondo's own example gives 1,000 OUSG.
- Accrue. USDY's price rises as yield accrues. rUSDY, a wrapped version, holds its price at $1.00 and adds tokens to your balance instead. OUSG's NAV is recalculated each business day and pushed onchain through a price oracle.
- Redeem. Instant OUSG redemptions settle in USDC in a single transaction, within the limits described below. Non-instant redemptions requested before 4 p.m. ET typically pay out the next business day. USDY redemptions to USD go only to non-US bank accounts.
Ondo stresses that USDY gives economic exposure to Treasuries but is not itself a Treasury and gives no right to receive one. Tokenized stocks work similarly: holders get the price and reinvested-dividend exposure but no shareholder voting or information rights.
Ondo fees, minimums and limits
- OUSG: a 0.15% annual management fee, waived until 1 January 2027, with fund expenses capped at 0.15% a year. Instant minting and redemption may carry extra fees shown on the product page. The minimum is $5,000 for instant transactions, and $100,000 to invest or $50,000 to redeem otherwise. Instant activity is capped at $25 million per investor and $50 million across all investors in any 24 hours.
- USDY: minting and redeeming on Sui, Aptos, Stellar, XRP Ledger or Noble goes through Ondo support, with a $5,000 minimum.
- Ondo Stocks: no mint or burn fee. Ondo keeps any difference between the quoted price and its own execution price, the minimum is $1, and you pay your own gas. Dividends are reinvested net of US withholding tax at the rate that applies to the BVI issuer, generally 30%.
Who can use Ondo: eligibility and restrictions
US persons cannot buy USDY, Ondo Stocks or Intelligent Portfolios from the issuer. These tokens are sold under Regulation S, the US exemption for offerings made outside the United States. The prohibited list also includes Canada, Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Myanmar and the occupied regions of Ukraine. In Brazil, the EEA, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK, Ondo Stocks are restricted to qualified or professional investors, and in Switzerland they are not offered to individuals at all.
OUSG works the other way round. It is a US private fund offered under Rule 506(c) of Regulation D, open only to investors who are both verified accredited investors and qualified purchasers. Ondo's KYC is run through the identity provider Persona.
The tokens are transferable once issued, but buying one on an exchange or in a DeFi pool does not give you the right to redeem it with the issuer. Only onboarded holders can redeem. Our guide on assessing a stablecoin's reserves and redemption explains why that distinction matters for any dollar-linked token.
Legal structure, custody and safeguards
The safeguards Ondo publishes differ by product:
- Tokenized stocks and portfolios: issued from a bankruptcy-remote SPV with an independent director, held at US-registered custodial broker-dealers, and overcollateralized. Ankura Trust Company acts as security agent and holds a first-priority security interest in the collateral. Ankura also produces daily attestations of holdings. Tokenholder rights are governed by Swiss law under the issuer's sales terms.
- OUSG: the fund administrator, NAV Consulting, has read-only daily access to the fund's accounts. The fund is audited annually, and results go to investors.
- Smart contracts: Ondo's audits page links reports from Cantina, Zellic, FYEO, Cyfrin, Spearbit, Halborn, Code4rena, Zokyo and Nethermind for current products, and from ABDK, Quantstamp, PeckShield and CertiK for deprecated ones.
These structures move counterparty risk around rather than removing it. A holder depends on the issuer, custodians, the stablecoin swapper's liquidity and the oracle updates. An audit is a review of code at a point in time, not insurance.
The ONDO token and governance
ONDO is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with a maximum supply of 10,000,000,000, per its Etherscan contract page. Flux Finance's documentation says Flux is governed by the Ondo DAO. Flux is a fork of Compound v2 in which stablecoins can be borrowed against permissioned collateral such as OUSG; our Compound profile describes the original design. Holding ONDO does not give a claim on USDY, OUSG or any tokenized stock's assets.
Leadership
Ondo's team page lists Nathan Allman as founder and Ian De Bode as acting CEO and president. Patrick McHenry is listed as vice chairman and Mark Janoff as general counsel. The company's blog announced in August 2026 that Allison Parent had joined as chief policy officer.
Alternatives by function
Other ways to get similar exposure include tokenized Treasury funds from other issuers and onchain credit protocols such as Maple Finance. They differ in structure, eligibility and risk, and none is ranked here. Our DeFi protocol ratings compare protocols in this category, and Ondo is assessed separately in our Ondo Finance review.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from one of the pages below, read on the date shown. Where the company is the only source for a claim, the text says so. Manufacturers change prices and specifications without notice — if something here no longer matches the source, tell us and we will correct it.
- 1.Ondo docs — welcome and product overview — checked
- 2.Ondo docs — trust and security (legal structure) — checked
- 3.Ondo docs — USDY basics — checked
- 4.Ondo docs — USDY eligibility — checked
- 5.Ondo docs — USDY important notes — checked
- 6.Ondo docs — OUSG overview — checked
- 7.Ondo docs — OUSG fees and taxes — checked
- 8.Ondo docs — OUSG redeeming — checked
- 9.Ondo docs — OUSG instant limits — checked
- 10.Ondo docs — OUSG trust and transparency — checked
- 11.Ondo docs — qualified access eligibility — checked
- 12.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks overview — checked
- 13.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks eligibility — checked
- 14.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks legal and regulatory — checked
- 15.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks trust and transparency — checked
- 16.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks fees and taxes — checked
- 17.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks investing and redeeming — checked
- 18.Ondo docs — Ondo Stocks onboarding and KYC — checked
- 19.Ondo docs — Intelligent Portfolios overview — checked
- 20.Ondo docs — Private Markets overview — checked
- 21.Ondo docs — smart contract audits — checked
- 22.Ondo docs — Flux Finance — checked
- 23.Ondo docs — official domains — checked
- 24.Ondo docs — terms of service — checked
- 25.Ondo Finance — team page — checked
- 26.Ondo Finance — blog index — checked
- 27.Flux Finance docs — introduction — checked
- 28.Etherscan — ONDO token contract — checked
Frequently asked questions
Is USDY a stablecoin?
Not in the usual sense. Ondo describes USDY as a tokenized note, a debt obligation of its BVI issuer, whose price rises as Treasury yield accrues. Ondo compares it with stablecoins in its docs but states that it is not registered and cannot be sold to US persons. rUSDY is the variant that holds a $1.00 price and adds tokens instead.
Can I buy Ondo tokenized stocks from the United States?
No. Ondo Global Markets sells them only under Regulation S, so persons in the US, US persons and anyone acting for a US person are prohibited from subscribing for, acquiring or redeeming them. The same applies in Canada and in a list of sanctioned jurisdictions.
Can I redeem OUSG or USDY that I bought on a secondary market?
Only if you have completed the issuer's onboarding and KYC and are eligible for that product. The tokens can be transferred onchain, but OUSG tokens move freely only between onboarded qualified investors, and redemption is always handled by the issuer.
Does Ondo Finance hold my tokens?
No. USDY, OUSG and Ondo tokenized stocks are sent to the wallet you mint from, and Ondo's docs say they can be held in ordinary self-custody wallets or by custodians such as BitGo, Fireblocks and Ledger. The underlying assets are held by the issuers' custodians, not by you.
How do I tell whether an Ondo website or account is genuine?
Check it against Ondo's official domains page: ondo.finance, app.ondo.finance, docs.ondo.finance, ondo.foundation and fluxfinance.com, plus @OndoFinance on X. Ondo says its team will never message you first or ask for a seed phrase, private keys or funds to verify a wallet.
A reference profile, not a recommendation. Nothing here is financial advice. Editorial policy · How we're funded.