When the big names in traditional finance such as Fidelity and Charles Schwab eventually move into tokenized securities, will there be room left for Ondo Finance? Ian De Bode, CEO of Ondo Fin
When the big names in traditional finance such as Fidelity and Charles Schwab eventually move into tokenized securities, will there be room left for Ondo Finance?
Ian De Bode, CEO of Ondo Finance, has a clear answer, and it starts with understanding what Ondo actually built versus what Wall Street is building.
Speaking exclusively to TheStreet Roundtable, De Bode explained that Ondo's core product is what he calls the wrapper model, issuing instruments that carry full economic exposure to an underlying asset, structured similarly to how a stablecoin works.
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"A stablecoin really is just a wrapper around cash sitting in a bank account," De Bode told TheStreet Roundtable.
"We do the same thing for stocks, ETFs, and the like."
The wrapper structure exists specifically to solve a DeFi compatibility problem. Native stocks are always permissioned, only fully verified users can hold them, which causes smart contracts to break.
Ondo's wrapper sidesteps that, creating an instrument that functions like a crypto asset, compatible across DeFi protocols, self-custodial wallets, and crypto exchanges without disrupting existing systems.
De Bode noted that crypto exchanges find tokenized stocks in wrapper format straightforward to integrate. They can use existing accounting and custody infrastructure, keep markets open 24 hours a day, and settle trades against stablecoins.
De Bode was direct about how he views traditional financial institutions, not as rivals but as infrastructure builders working on a complementary problem.
In his view, firms like Fidelity, Nasdaq, NYSE, and DTCC are moving markets toward 24/7 trading infrastructure through tokenization. What they are not focused on is DeFi distribution and compatibility.
"That is tremendously useful if you then wrap that asset and put it into DeFi," he said, "because DeFi operates twenty-four-seven anyway."
De Bode's framing is clean: TradFi builds 24/7 market infrastructure. Ondo builds the DeFi integrations and distribution rails that reach offshore investors through self-custodial wallets and crypto exchanges.
"The two are very complementary," he said.
Ondo is also extending that DeFi utility through its own product portfolio, including Ondo Perps, a perpetual futures platform that lets investors use tokenized stocks and ETFs as collateral for leveraged trading.
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