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Ondo Finance Brings Tokenized US Stocks to 280 Million Binance Users | Markets Outlook
00:09:23
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Transcript30 lines
- [00:00]
Ian Debode
Foreign.
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Interviewer 1
We're now joined by Ian Debode who is Ondo Finance's present. He's working to bridge institutional grade assets to global blockchain users. Ian, I think you got a promotion since we last chatted.
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Ian Debode
I did, thank you very much.
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Interviewer 1
Well, welcome, President. Let's talk about you being here at Binance Blockchain Week. Ondo recently launched tokenized stocks and ETFs within the Binance wallet. Talk to us about that.
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Ian Debode
Yeah, we launched tokenized stocks, stocks in the Binance Wallet last week. So now all of Binance Wallet's users, about 280 million people I think have access to US stocks and ETFs 24. 7 whenever they want.
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Interviewer 2
This seems to be a trend that a lot of people are on. How do we think this is going to play out on the regulatory side? And I only say that because I think that, you know, we saw sort of the public stuff that was happening with Tesla and opening Open Air. Future stocks are being traded. You know, do we need a little bit more of a, of an understanding of, of how this stuff works or should we just consider it? It's a stablecoin. We got, we got a stock in a bank somewhere and you. And you get to buy a share of it.
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Ian Debode
Yeah, so it's a good point. We obviously welcome more regulatory clarity. Our assets right now are issued outside of the US A lot of the conversation on tokenized stocks is happening within the US market. So we're talking outside the US right now where a lot of things quite frankly are already possible. Our assets are issued under Swiss law. There's a prospectus in the eu, there's outside the US There are some regulatory frameworks that we can follow. We're fully compliant with those. All of our assets are fully backed. So when you buy a Tesla token, you can rest assured that there is a Tesla stock sitting in a brokerage account. So none of the like OpenAI difficulties that we saw with some of our competitors and we've seen very good traction so far of the product, like users really want access to these stocks 24. 7 because outside the US in particular they, there really is a large user base that historically has struggled to get access to US stocks and ETFs and now on blockchain rails they can do that very seamlessly. With stablecoins 24.
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Interviewer 2
7, can you just follow up, make the case for us why it's better to buy a tokenized stock than a real stock?
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Ian Debode
Yeah, I mean with a real stock in a brokerage account.
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You are Essentially locked into your platform. You cannot transfer these assets out between various different brokerages. You can transfer it into a Binance Wallet whenever you want to. So a lot of people are just used to an experience in the brokerage app that is very close. That means that whatever is available in your brokerage app, that's what you have. And your margin rate that you can get is what it is. Right. When you tokenize these things, all of a sudden you can transfer it very freely between the various platforms. You can even take it into your Binance Wallet whenever you want to. You can transfer them around 24 7. You can use them in defi. So it just becomes a much more seamless experience. Kind of what people are now used to with a stablecoin. It's kind of like, why is a stablecoin better than a bank deposit? Well, you know, at least it's one for one, backed for one, and you can freely transfer it whenever you want to, use it however you want to. Same thing applies to tokenized stocks and ETFs.
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Interviewer 1
You know, we're sitting here in the United Arab Emirates and Dubai. How are you looking at this region? Why is it important for Andre to have a presence here?
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Ian Debode
Yeah, we focus quite a bit on non US markets for access to these stocks. As mentioned, we believe fundamentally there is a very large user group that wants access to US capital markets, but historically has struggled. And it's the same markets where you've seen stablecoin adoption really leapfrog because people want access to that US dollar and use it seamlessly. Those are the markets that we are targeting for our tokenized stocks and ETFs. And obviously the Middle east with the capital flow that it has and them trying to attract more crypto players is a very important region for us, particularly with a lot of the crypto exchanges now moving here. It's really them as distribution partners that are very relevant to Ondo Finance. We expect, quite frankly, that a lot of the crypto exchanges are going to start listing stocks in ETFs right now there's this very weird split in asset classes. Either you have a brokerage account for stocks and ETFs or you have a crypto exchange account for crypto. Right. There's very few platforms that truly offer both with a lot of breadth in their offering, but we believe that's going to change in 2026. A lot of those crypto exchanges are here, so that's why we're here trying to convince them of the benefits of tokenized stocks and that's exactly why this Binance Wallet partnership is so exciting for us.
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Interviewer 2
The thing that really unlocks as you talk about this, Ian, is I think about.
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The analogy I used to talk a lot about was the wire transfer. It's gonna take two or three days to get fees all over the place. And we know someone's just making money on that float. And that really was in a digital world. It was still very analog money. My E Trade account feels very similar. Right. I sell something, it takes amount of time to settle, then I have to wait a couple days before they'll transfer to my bank account. So what you're saying is, oh, I can do this at the speed of light. And that's. That's, you know, that's miraculous. I also think about the idea that money is still control, as we know, from the governmental side. But we go to, you know, the Finance Summit, which we were at with you guys, and you have the who's who of Tradfi there. They really want to play this game.
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Ian Debode
They do.
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Interviewer 2
So are they comfortable with that, that sort of loss of control that might have come with the JP Morgans or the. Or some of the other big players by and by saying, hey, we get to access this giant world of people who really just want to play the game with us.
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Ian Debode
I think you hit the nail on the head. I think they're very excited by it because they don't want to make the same mistake as they did with stablecoins. Right. Stablecoins were essentially formed completely outside of TradFi. Obviously, the reserves are being kept in traffic, but the distribution of a stablecoin to these global users and the growth until $300 billion or so, they largely missed. And so they look at Ondo Finance and the tokenization technology really as a. To say, okay, if you put these assets on chain, all of a sudden you can distribute them a lot more freely to a global user base. It just becomes another distribution channel for them. And if you're an asset manager, right now, you're used to working with various different distribution channels with. Via traditional brokerage accounts. So for a lot of these asset managers, they just look at public blockchain rails as another distribution channel, and we just happen to be the engine that puts these assets on there and then distributes it for them. So they kind of get it, quite frankly, and they're not opposed to it at all.
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Interviewer 1
Sam talks about a loss of control. I imagine there's a loss of money when it comes to fees. Is there? Or are the fee structures similar?
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Ian Debode
Yeah. It's a lot cheaper to buy tokenized stocks than it is in many countries to buy it from a brokerage account. Quite frankly, if you look at some of the fees that are being charged globally on some of these products, for an American, it's absurd. So really what we're just doing is putting these assets on crypto rails with zero commission or free trading, etc. Making that available to a global audience and really giving everyone access. To your point, I'm sure that may eat into the margin of some local players, but that's where the opportunity for these crypto exchanges and other distribution platforms really lie is to give everyone free access to these stocks and ETFs.
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Interviewer 2
You guys have come such a long way since even we spoke to you a year ago.
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Where are you going to be in 2027? How much of the global equities market do you think is going to be tokenized?
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Ian Debode
Yeah, that's an excellent question. I'm not sure if I'm being honest, but you are correct. The growth we've seen is pretty spectacular. I think when I joined Ondo Almost two years ago, we were at 200 million in TVL. Now we're coming up on 2 billion in TVL.
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Interviewer 2
So it's a 10x.
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Ian Debode
So 10x more or less. The asset classes of tokenized Treasuries went from a billion or so to now almost 10 billion. And even tokenized stocks are really by far the leader. I think we have 60% market share or something. So I do expect that growth to continue. 2026 will definitely be the year of tokenized stocks. We've seen a little bit of that in 2025. Now with the Robinhood announcement, Kraken just announcing they're taking over Bakkt and with the X stocks. So I think that trend will continue in 2026, 2027, I think the sky ultimately is the limit. People in crypto are not used to the size of traditional financial markets. So how big this can really become, who knows. But it's quite big. And in terms of what's next? Tokenizing stocks, I think was really just the first step that you do now that you have these things freely transferable. 24.7On crypto rails, how you think about asset management, how you think about investment strategies, all of that is really about to change, quite frankly, in a very big way and in a way that a lot of people, particularly in traditional finance, aren't really ready for.
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Interviewer 1
Predictions is one of the themes on this broadcast here today. What gets tokenized next?
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Ian Debode
Ian I mean.
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We'Re. We're already very happy to focus on the thousand or so stocks.
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Right now we're at 100, so I'll be very happy if we hit 1000 next year. So we've got our work cut out, but, yeah, we're very excited for what's to come.
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Interviewer 1
Ian, it's always a pleasure having you on. Thanks for joining us.
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Ian Debode
Thank you very much.