Ondo Brings Treasury-backed Stablecoin to Aptos

Leading real-world asset (RWA) protocol Ondo Finance is partnering with the Aptos Foundation, the organization which stewards the eponymous blockchain with a market capitalization of $3.3 billion.

The first stage of the partnership involves integrating Ondo’s USDY token, which is backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank deposits, on Aptos. USDY has a market capitalization of $3.8M, according to data provider rwa.xyz. Ondo’s short-term U.S. government bond product, OUSG, is the third largest treasury-backed asset in DeFi.

"Joining forces with Aptos, a platform with deep institutional roots and a clear vision for the future of blockchain, amplifies our ability to deliver groundbreaking financial products,” said Nathan Allman, Ondo’s CEO and co-founder.

Ondo’s recently launched governance token has surged nearly 60% in the past two weeks. Aptos’ APT is flat over the same period.

The move combines two teams with backgrounds of working with big tech and finance — Allman spent two years at Goldman Sachs before founding Ondo. Mo Shaikh, Aptos Labs’ CEO, previously worked at Blackrock and Meta.

Ondo has been aggressively expanding its offerings to other blockchains after launching its flagship products on Ethereum in January 2023 — the project launched on Solana in December and on Sui, which uses Move, the same programming language as Aptos, earlier this month.

As part of the partnership, Thala, Aptos’ leading DeFi protocol by total value locked (TVL) with $144 million, will whitelist USDY as a collateral asset on its collateralized debt position (CDP) platform. Thala will also support USDY on its automated market maker (AMM).

The partnership will go beyond integrating USDY, according to a press release shared with The Defiant — it specified “staking and re-staking processes that enhance the utility of tokenized assets and the capital efficiency of the platforms that support them” as potential future areas of collaboration.