In a significant step towards converging traditional finance and the crypto world, Ondo Finance and Pantera Capital have announced a substantial $250 million allocation for real-world asset (RWA) investments, as reported by Axios. This capital is earmarked for both equity stakes and digital project tokens, with the core aim of bringing conventional securities like stocks, bonds, and ETFs onto the blockchain.
This strategic investment is part of a broader industry movement to provide users with 24/7 access to tokenized financial instruments, effectively bypassing the restrictive operating hours of traditional market infrastructure.
Ondo Finance has already established a platform for onchain exposure to U.S. securities. This new funding will dramatically scale those efforts, responding to the increasing demand for seamless RWA access via blockchain technology.
"What we're really asking is why anyone would still hold their assets in a brokerage account when they could have them onchain," stated Ian De Bode, Chief Strategy Officer at Ondo.
This announcement comes amidst a vigorous industry push to tokenize traditional assets. Recently, Robinhood started offering EU users derivatives that mimic shares of companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, though these have faced controversy for not being actual shares, with OpenAI notably distancing itself.
The competition to tokenize equities is heating up, with various players like Injective, Plume Network, Republic, and Backed all developing solutions for onchain RWA trading. Major exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken are also exploring this market, with ambitions to offer tokenized shares of companies like Tesla and Apple to retail investors.
As more capital flows into this segment of the crypto market, the lines between traditional and digital finance are blurring, signaling a new era where assets could be traded around the clock, globally.
July 2025, Cryptoniteuae