World Liberty Fi buys Ondo (ONDO) as the project launches its new chain for RWA tokenization

World Liberty Financial, the Trump family DeFi fund, is back to buying tokens. This time, the fund added more Ondo (ONDO) as the RWA tokenization project launched its new L1 chain. 

The Trump family DeFi fund, World Liberty Financial, is back to buying tokens, acquiring more Ondo (ONDO) after the recent reorganization of its reserves. ONDO is one of the recently aggregated ‘made in USA’ tokens, fitting with the vision of World Liberty Fi to support US-based projects. 

The fund spent 470K USDC to buy 342K ONDO, rebuilding the token holdings after previously sending them out to other wallets and to Coinbase Prime.

Before the recent purchase, World Liberty Fi held 134K ONDO, divesting the tokens to zero before repurchasing. The fund used the CowSwap protocol to make the purchase, rebuilding its stake in a single transaction. Previously, World Liberty Fi traded ONDO, making use of the token’s short-term volatility.

Following the news, ONDO recovered to $1.34, bouncing from its recent lows. 

World Liberty Fi rebuilds its portfolio

World Liberty Fi first acquired ONDO in December 2024, spending 250K USDC. Later, the fund bought additional tokens on inauguration day, January 20. Currently, the fund sits on over $14M USDC, potentially for purchasing other crypto assets. 

After the recent portfolio reorganization, World Liberty Fi holds $34.73M in assets, down from a peak nominal value of $404M. The fund keeps receiving small inflows of ETH and USDC on the final stage of its second presale stage, selling WLFI at $0.05. 

World Liberty Fi currently does not hold any Bitcoin (BTC), despite Eric Trump’s recent comment on having a good entry price at around $98,000 per coin. Eric Trump also called for accumulating Ethereum (ETH), despite the fact that World Liberty Fi seems to have divested some of its ETH holdings, and the asset is met with bearish sentiment.

Ondo revives RWA tokenization narrative

Ondo is one of the projects with the biggest chances of bridging traditional finance and on-chain assets. ONDO remains the third-largest RWA token by market capitalization, following ChainLink (LINK) and Manta (MANTA). The entire RWA sector is valued at $35B and is one of the more resilient narratives. 

Ondo Finance is gaining more exposure after launching Ondo Chain, a specialized L1 for RWA tokenization. The new chain was presented during the Ondo Summit, an event on the developments in the RWA sector. 

1/ Today, we’re thrilled to announce Ondo Chain, our new Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for institutional-grade RWAs.

Design advisors for the chain include new members of the Ondo Ecosystem: Franklin Templeton, Wellington Management, WisdomTree, Google Cloud, ABN Amro, Aon,… pic.twitter.com/a35GHB7OFW

— Ondo Finance (@OndoFinance) February 6, 2025

Ondo Finance already supports Ondo Global Markets, but it has found the existing public blockchains unsuitable for regulated tokenization. Ondo Chain will onboard permissioned validators to avoid MEV attacks, which can undermine the reliability of RWA assets. Ondo also aims to partner with financial institutions, which will become fully permissioned, reputable, and regulated validators. 

Ondo Chain will secure its network by proof of reserves. Validators will broadcast the underlying assets behind each RWA. Additionally, the permissioned validators will serve as oracles for pricing information. The chain will have all the features of public networks, including 24/7 availability and liquidity, and will also host existing crypto assets. However, the chain’s main goal will be reliability as a true institutional-grade chain, avoiding the worst attacks of public chains and DeFi.

The projects of Ondo will offer a mix of permissionless and permissioned assets, serving multiple regions with yield and secure reserves. 

Ondo Finance already tested the tokenization of money markets by becoming the biggest holder of BlackRock’s BUIDL token. The project holds 43M BUIDL out of a total supply of $394M. RWA tokenization is still tentative, mostly used to build the supply of stablecoins by backing them with conservative financial instruments. Ondo Finance aims to expand the possibilities for tokenization while working in partnership with leading financial companies. 

Ondo Finance has also issued products based on US short-term government bonds, under the OUSG ticker. The products are spread to Flux Finance and other DeFi holders. Ondo Finance carries $654.52M in value locked, recently rising near an all-time high.

As part of its tokenization efforts, Ondo Finance will introduce the USDY asset, a yield-bearing stablecoin. Paradoxically, despite its focus on the US market, USDY will only be offered internationally. USDY will be brought to the Stellar network, offering global access to the token with underlying US Treasuries. Currently, stablecoins that are based on treasuries and money markets do not share their yield. 

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