Ondo Finance, the leader in the real-world asset (RWA) protocol space, has teamed up with the Aptos Foundation, the guardian of the name blockchain, which is worth $3.3 billion.
In the initial phase of the collaboration, Ondo’s USDY token—backed by short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and bank deposits—will be integrated into Aptos. Based on the statistics provided by rwa.xyz, the market capitalization of USDY is $3.8 million. Out of all the Treasury-backed assets in DeFi, Ondo’s OUSG short-term US government bond product is the third biggest.
Nathan Allman, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ondo, said, “Joining forces with Aptos, a platform with strong institutional roots and a clear vision for the future of blockchain, magnifies our capacity to offer innovative financial solutions.”
The newly issued governance token from Ondo has seen a 60% spike in value over the last two weeks. Over the same time frame, Aptos’ APT remains unchanged.
The merger brings together two groups with experience collaborating with large digital companies and financial institutions; Allman worked for Goldman Sachs for two years before starting Ondo. Aptos Labs’ CEO, Mo Shaikh, has experience at Meta and Blackrock.
Since releasing its main products on Ethereum in January 2023, Ondo has been actively branching out to other blockchains, with projects becoming live on Solana in December and Sui (which utilizes Move, the same programming language as Aptos) earlier this month.
The agreement calls for Thala, the top DeFi protocol according to TVL at $144 million (Aptos), to add USDY to its collateralized debt position (CDP) platform as a security. On its automated market maker (AMM), Thala will also back USDY.
A press release described future areas of collaboration as “staking and re-staking handles that improve the utility of tokenized assets and the capital efficiency of the platforms that support them,” indicating that the partnership will extend beyond USDY integration. This information was shared with The Defiant.
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