Breaking Down Walled Gardens: How Ondo Global Market Brings 100+ US Stocks to the Chain

Since the beginning of this year, the stock tokenization track has suddenly become lively.

Projects such as Robinhood, xStocks, Backed, and Swarm have entered the market, each trying different paths.

Why are giants eyeing stock tokenization?

The market size is indeed attractive. The US stock market has a market value of $60 trillion, but global crypto users, especially non-US users, have never had the opportunity to invest in US stocks conveniently.

The opportunity is huge, and there are many players. However, problems always exist: either tokens are locked in the platform and cannot be withdrawn, or there is a serious lack of liquidity resulting in huge slippage, or the coverage of assets is too limited to achieve scale.

"Free circulation" and "liquidity depth" are still key issues that need to be urgently addressed in this field.

On September 3, Ondo Finance, a leading project in the RWA sector, launched Global Markets, which may be a powerful solution to these problems and a challenger to the current market landscape.

When introducing this new product, its Official Twitter said something meaningful:

" Not all tokenized stocks are born equal."

This is obviously a tribute to the phrase "all men are created equal" in the American Declaration of Independence, but it also implies another kind of equality:

Allow global investors to have equal access to the U.S. capital market, no longer constrained by the excessively high transaction costs and defects of existing products.

On the first day of the product launch, Ondo demonstrated extraordinary scale.

More than 100 stocks and ETFs are open for trading at the same time, from Apple, Tesla to the S&P 500 index, and even the crypto concept stock MicroStrategy, almost covering all the U.S. stocks that investors are most concerned about.

Even more striking is its claim of near-zero transaction fees, 24/5 trading hours, and deep liquidity achieved through “instant minting” technology.

This reminds people of stablecoins.

USDC and USDT freed the US dollar from the constraints of bank accounts, enabling 24/7 free circulation on the chain; now, Ondo wants to do the same for US stocks, making Tesla, Apple, and the S&P 500 index easy-to-use native assets on the chain like stablecoins.

Although it is currently only open to institutional investors, we can still get a glimpse of it from the products that have been made public.

The "stablecoin moment" of stock tokenization may really be coming.

Buy stocks like buying coins

When you open the Ondo Global Markets interface, the first feeling is familiarity and simplicity.

It looks more like a US stock version of CoinMarketCap. Even if you have never traded US stocks, it is easy to find a sense of familiarity from the familiar interface layout and UI guidance.

At the top, the real-time points of the US stock market indices are scrolling: Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P 500; below are three sections: Top Gainers, Trending, and Newly Added.

Scrolling down, "Explore Assets" is more like browsing a carefully categorized U.S. stock supermarket.

Under all asset categories, assets in different tracks such as ETFs, technology stocks, consumer stocks, and financial stocks are neatly classified. Clicking in will show you the real-time price and 24-hour K-line chart of each token, which is very similar to the pages we usually see on websites that aggregate the crypto market.

However, each US stock has the suffix "on" after its name to remind you that it is the tokenized version of Ondo.

In terms of total volume, tech stocks are currently the most popular sector for tokenized US stocks on Ondo. As of press time, Nvidia's 24-hour trading volume was $164 million; Google's was $103 million; and Tesla's was $88 million.

Out of curiosity, we also compared the US stock prices on Ondo with the real stock market during the same period. Interestingly, these prices are not exactly the same as the real-time stock prices on Nasdaq.

According to Ondo Finance’s official documentation , Ondo’s tokens not only track stock prices but also include dividends.

In layman's terms, if Apple pays a $1 dividend, the system will automatically use that $1 (after taxes) to purchase more Apple stock. So, over time, one AAPL share might equal 1.05 actual Apple shares, naturally resulting in a higher price. This is more like automatically enabling a "dividend reinvestment" feature.

For example, in the picture above, you can directly select Tesla's token TSLAon on Ondo, enter the amount you want to exchange in the DeFi-like Swap interface, and use USDC stablecoin to pay.

The current minimum purchase threshold is just $1, meaning any crypto user with a wallet can theoretically participate in US stock investment. However, it's important to note that Ondo's market is currently built on Ethereum, so gas fees must be considered. Officials have also stated that they will expand this to BNB Chain, Solana, and their own Ondo Chain.

If the on-chain gas cost is excluded, Ondo does not charge the various fees of traditional brokerages, such as account opening fees, account management fees, platform usage fees, etc.; its revenue comes from transaction costs of approximately 0.01-0.03% when users trade.

Simply put, the total cost of a $1,000 transaction is about $1, which is much lower than the standard fee of $5-10 or the proportional fee of 0.1-0.5% of traditional brokerages.

In terms of trading hours, the platform supports "24/5" trading - from 8 pm Sunday to 8 pm Friday (Eastern Time).

This flexibility is particularly beneficial for Asian investors, as they no longer have to wait for the US stock market to open. The specific implementation of continuous trading after the US stock market closes involves a unique technical architecture, which we will explain in detail below.

Of course, all of this is currently only open to institutional investors, and individual users are still on the waiting list, but judging from the product design, Ondo is indeed building a more accessible US stock investment platform.

How are deep liquidity and 24x5 trading achieved?

After experiencing Ondo's product interface and operation process, three questions naturally emerged:

Is Ondo's liquidity better than other platforms? How can I still trade on it after the US stock market closes? If Ondo doesn't charge explicit commissions, how does it make money?

Instant casting, embracing Nasdaq's trading depth

Let’s first look at the issue of liquidity.

A Twitter user recently shared a set of comparison screenshots, visually demonstrating the liquidity disparity. For example, using $50,000 USDC to buy Amazon stock tokens: on Ondo, you can buy 218.67 AMZNon tokens, worth $49,834; on xStocks, you can only buy 38.97 AMZNx tokens, worth only $8,833, representing a significant slippage of -82.33%.

With the same amount of money, one can buy 218 shares, while the other can only buy 39 shares. Why is the difference so huge?

Ondo CEO Nathan Allman’s tweet at the time of the product launch actually explained this problem very well. The key lies in two completely different tokenization operating models.

• Existing platforms operate like a supermarket model : they require pre-orders. Market makers pre-buy stocks, mint tokens, and then distribute them to various exchanges. The problem is that supermarkets have limited shelf space and capital. If someone wants to buy $50,000 worth of Amazon stock, but there's only $10,000 in stock on the shelf, they're either unable to buy it or the price will be inflated to an exorbitant level.

• Ondo Global Market operates similarly to a food delivery service: When a user orders Amazon stock, the platform "sources" the actual stock from Nasdaq and mints tokens. When the user wants to sell, the tokens are immediately destroyed and the stock is sold on Nasdaq. With no inventory restrictions or shelf space requirements, Ondo Global Market inherits Nasdaq's daily trading volume of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Nathan calls this model "instant, atomic minting and burning." More importantly, this model can be easily expanded to hundreds or even thousands of stocks because there is no need to prepare a pool of funds for each stock in advance.

24/5 trading, 24/7 transfers

Official documents show that trading hours are from 8:05 PM Sunday to 7:59 PM Friday (EST), covering almost the entire week. How is this possible?

The answer is a two-tier mechanism. The first tier is the minting and redemption tier, which relies on the traditional market.

Ondo not only integrates the regular trading hours of the NYSE and Nasdaq (9:30-16:00), but also the pre-market hours (4:00-9:30), after-market hours (16:00-20:00), and the overnight hours (20:00-4:00) offered by alternative trading systems like Blue Ocean. Together, these provide 24-hour coverage on weekdays.

The second layer is the token transfer layer. For example, TSLAon, the tokenized version of Tesla's stock, is a standard ERC-20 token once minted. It can be transferred between users 24/7, just like USDT. Even on weekends when traditional markets are completely closed, users can still trade tokens with each other.

Of course, the document also mentions that liquidity during the overnight period is relatively low and large orders may need to be split.

Price difference: transparent profit model

"We do not charge any minting, redemption or management fees."

This sentence in the FAQ document already makes it clear that Ondo doesn't make money from these aspects, but the second half of the sentence is equally important: "The price may differ slightly from the price at which we buy and sell the underlying shares."

This "slight difference" is Ondo's source of income.

In financial markets, there's always a slight difference between the bid and ask price, representing the cost and reward of providing liquidity. Traditional brokerages also have a spread, but they also charge an additional $5-10 commission. Ondo only collects the spread, not the commission.

Specifically, when Tesla's stock price is $100, you might pay $100.01 to buy through Ondo and receive $99.99 for selling. This $0.02 (0.02%) difference is far lower than the total cost of "spread + commission" (typically 0.5-1%) at traditional brokerages.

This pricing model is common in markets like foreign exchange and gold. Ondo keeps the spread extremely low while eliminating all other fees.

For users, this means that the total cost of trading $1,000 worth of stocks may be only about $1, which was unimaginable in the era of traditional brokerages.

Comparison with current competitors

Stock tokenization is nothing new. From Mirror Protocol in early 2021 to Ondo Global Markets today, you can see that this sector has undergone a clear evolution.

The most conservative approach is for the platform to build its own "wall", with tokens circulating within the platform and unable to be withdrawn to personal wallets. A typical example is Robinhood.

This model essentially just moves traditional brokerages onto the blockchain. Beyond the potential cost savings, it doesn't truly leverage the advantages of blockchain. The user experience is similar to trading on a brokerage app, except that blockchain technology may be used in the background.

The second category is xStocks. Tokenized US stocks can be freely transferred on the chain, but the liquidity is too poor, and large slippage makes large transactions a problem.

Ondo may represent the third generation of thinking: not to build a trading platform, but to build infrastructure.

Ondo solves the core pain point of liquidity through its instant minting mechanism. More importantly, it has been designed from the outset to integrate deeply with DeFi, such as accepting Morpho as collateral and aggregating transactions with 1inch.

In simple terms,

• Robinhood-like : Prioritizing compliance at the expense of openness

• xStocks : Pursuing openness first, but constrained by liquidity

• Ondo : Trying to achieve openness and mobility while maintaining compliance through technological innovation

This isn't to say Ondo is guaranteed to win. Robinhood has a massive user base, and xStocks has a first-mover advantage and a strong ecosystem position. But Ondo has certainly found a differentiated path.

Asia Pacific Participation Eligibility List

For Asia-Pacific investors, Ondo Global Markets presents both opportunities and barriers to entry. Participation rules vary significantly across countries and regions, but this chart provides a quick overview.

Except for regions that are explicitly prohibited or restricted, other non-US regions can theoretically participate. This means that users in countries such as Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam only need to pass basic KYC (identity verification).

However, it should be noted that Ondo Global Markets is currently only open to institutional investors, and individual investors, regardless of their region, will have to wait.

The on-chain revolution is happening

If you look at the list of partners of Ondo Global Markets, you will find even greater ambitions.

In the context of the coin-stock integration, it is more likely to be a DeFi stock infrastructure, showing a clear technology stack:

• Technical foundation layer: Chainlink provides price oracles and proof of reserves; LayerZero provides cross-chain capabilities, and BitGo and Fireblocks provide institutional-grade custody, allowing traditional financial institutions to participate with confidence.

• DeFi Protocol Integration : Morpho has confirmed that it will accept Ondo stock tokens as collateral. This means you can borrow Tesla shares in DeFi. 1inch and CoW Protocol's aggregated trading capabilities allow liquidity to flow freely across platforms.

• Expanded user access: Integration with mainstream wallets such as Trust Wallet, Bitget Wallet, and OKX Wallet lowers the barrier to entry. Support from exchanges such as Gate and MEXC provides an alternative to centralized channels.

Back to the question at the beginning, has the "stablecoin moment" of stock tokenization really arrived?

From a technical perspective, Ondo has indeed solved core challenges. Instant minting brings deep liquidity, zero fees lower the barrier to entry, and DeFi integration creates new possibilities.

From a market perspective, the time seems ripe. The RWA market is experiencing explosive growth, institutions are beginning to accept it, and the infrastructure is becoming increasingly mature.

But from a realistic perspective, the revolution has only just begun. Institutional advancement, geographical limitations, and unclear regulations are all obstacles that must be overcome.

Ondo Global Markets may not be the ultimate answer, but it represents a step in the right direction: making financial markets truly global, democratized, and programmable. This process may take years, but the first step has been taken.

For investors, now may not be the time to fully participate, but it is definitely a time to pay close attention.

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