Author: Changan | Biteye Content Team
On May 26, 2026, Ondo Finance officially announced that its founder, Nathan Allman, had passed away unexpectedly.
This news has brought the market's attention back to Ondo and put the RWA sector back in the spotlight.
From tokenized US Treasury bonds to Ondo Global Markets, and then to exposure to traditional financial assets such as US stocks and ETFs, Ondo has always been at the core of putting traditional assets on the blockchain.
So when traditional financial assets begin to be tokenized, who will control the next generation of asset access?
Today, this issue is no longer limited to Ondo; various participants, including xStocks and the NYSE, are entering the US stock tokenization market from different directions. They all appear to be putting US stocks on-chain, but their underlying strategies differ.
I. Ondo's contribution: Shifting RWA's narrative from revenue-driven to asset-driven.
Nathan Allman's contribution to Ondo went beyond simply creating an RWA project. More importantly, he transformed a then-conceptual direction into a product that the market could understand and users could use.
When the previous RWA narrative first emerged, the market's understanding of RWA was still relatively vague. Many discussions remained at the level of grand narratives: real estate can be put on the blockchain, bonds can be put on the blockchain, and stocks can also be put on the blockchain.
But when it comes to the actual user, people are more concerned about some very specific questions: What can I actually buy? Where do the returns come from? How should the risks be understood?
Ondo initially seized upon the relatively clear entry point of tokenized US Treasury bonds.
In a high-interest-rate environment, on-chain funds are beginning to seek more stable sources of returns. Compared to DeFi yields that rely on token subsidies, traditional assets such as US Treasury bonds and money market funds already have mature pricing systems and market recognition.
Ondo brings these traditional financial assets into the on-chain world through products like OUGG and USDY. This is also one of Nathan Allman's most important contributions to Ondo: he transformed RWA from a narrative into a product.
But Ondo is not content with just on-chain US Treasury bonds. From tokenized US Treasury bonds to Ondo Global Markets, and then to exposure to public market assets such as US stocks and ETFs, Ondo's goal has gradually become clearer: it wants to package traditional financial assets into on-chain financial products and establish a new distribution method.
In the past, RWA was more of a supplementary option in the Crypto market when people were looking for revenue.
Ondo makes RWA part of the on-chain financial system. Assets such as US Treasury bonds, stocks, and ETFs are not just moved on-chain, but can be integrated into wallets, trading platforms, institutional products, and many other financial scenarios.
This is why Nathan Allman's passing caused such a strong market reaction. Ondo is no longer just an ordinary project; it is one of the most representative examples of this round of RWA narratives. It embodies the market's imagination about whether "traditional financial assets can truly enter the on-chain world."
However, this incident also serves as a reminder to the market that while RWA connects to traditional financial assets such as US Treasury bonds, stocks, and ETFs, the project itself still faces the vulnerabilities typical of startups. Crypto projects, in particular, will see their founders' sudden departures prompting a re-evaluation of their organizational resilience.
If Ondo can continue to advance Global Markets, maintain institutional partnerships, expand distribution channels, and stabilize user and market confidence, then this handover will prove that it is no longer solely driven by its founder, but has entered a more mature stage.
Therefore, discussions about Ondo today cannot be limited to Ondo itself. As RWA expands from US Treasury yield products to publicly traded assets such as US stocks and ETFs, it no longer just touches upon product innovation within Crypto, but also the account, distribution, and settlement systems that traditional finance originally controlled.
II. Why will the tokenization of US stocks change the asset access of traditional brokerages?
When RWA moves from US Treasury yield products to publicly traded assets such as US stocks and ETFs, it touches not only on-chain yield issues, but also the asset distribution system that traditional finance has long controlled.
In the past, global users wanting to buy US stocks typically had to use a brokerage account. Account opening, KYC, depositing funds, currency exchange, trading, clearing, and custody—all processes were completed within the traditional financial system.
For securities firms, stock trading itself is only the surface; what truly matters is user relationships and asset accumulation. As long as user assets remain in the securities firm's account, businesses such as margin trading, securities lending, and wealth management can continue to revolve around that account.
The tokenization of US stocks has brought about changes by increasing the ways users can access US stock assets. Users are no longer limited to accessing US stocks through traditional brokerage accounts; they can also gain exposure to US stocks and ETFs through exchanges, wallets, and on-chain applications.
This does not mean that securities firms will be replaced immediately, but the asset entry, trading entry and distribution entry that were originally concentrated in securities firm accounts have begun to spill over.
This is why Ondo, xStocks, and the NYSE are entering this competition from different directions. They are not vying for a particular stock token, but rather for a new distribution position for US stock assets: whoever can bring traditional financial assets to more users has the opportunity to become the next generation of asset gateway.
III. Ondo, xStocks, and NYSE: Three Paths to Tokenization in US Stocks
On the surface, Ondo, xStocks, and the NYSE are all involved in the tokenization of US stocks, but they actually represent three completely different paths.
These three paths will likely determine what the future of on-chain US stocks will look like.
1️⃣Ondo: Starting with RWA products, building an on-chain financial asset platform
Ondo doesn't just aim to be a gateway to US stock trading; it aims to be a platform for self-issuance and distribution. More like a middleware layer between traditional finance and on-chain dApps: connecting to US stocks on one end and wallets on the other.
This differs from the logic of traditional securities firms. The core of traditional securities firms is their account system. Users open an account, buy stocks, and their assets remain with the securities firm and its custody system. Trading, dividends, taxes, and margin trading all revolve around this account.
What Ondo aims to do is to transform these traditional assets into on-chain, accessible, transferable, and combinable asset exposures.
This means that US stocks and ETFs are no longer just holdings in users' brokerage accounts, but may enter wallets, DEXs, lending protocols, on-chain asset management products and more DeFi scenarios.
The advantages of the ondo approach are obvious.
It is closer to the composability of DeFi.
It can serve the needs of non-US users worldwide for assets such as US stocks and US bonds.
It is easier to integrate with on-chain lending, stablecoins, yield products, and institutional wallets.
But its problems are equally obvious.
Products like ondos require highly complex legal, compliance, and custodial structures. What users typically buy is not a traditional stock account asset, but rather an economic exposure packaged by the issuing entity and legal structure.
Therefore, Ondo is more like an on-chain entry point for traditional assets, rather than a complete replica of a traditional brokerage account.
2️⃣xStocks: Starting from the trading entry point, it allows stock exposure to flow on the blockchain.
xStocks, on the other hand, focuses more on the trading platform. Its key is to place tokenized stocks directly into a familiar trading environment for users through cryptocurrency exchanges such as Kraken, Bybit, and KuCoin.
Of course, xStocks are still not the same as traditional stocks; users gain price exposure, not full shareholder rights.
It addresses how to make trading US stocks more convenient, but it hasn't solved deeper issues such as voting, corporate actions, and shareholder rights.
In addition to these risks, products like xStocks also face counterparty and custody risks. Even if a product emphasizes underlying asset support, users rely not only on the on-chain token itself, but also on whether the issuer holds the corresponding assets according to the rules, whether the custody arrangements are transparent, whether the trading platform is stable, and whether the redemption and liquidity mechanisms can function properly under extreme market conditions.
This is also one of the biggest differences between tokenization of US stocks and directly holding traditional stocks.
In a brokerage account, users are exposed to a mature system of securities registration, custody, and investor protection. However, when trading tokenized stocks on a Crypto exchange, users need to additionally understand the relationships between issuers, custodians, trading platforms, and on-chain contracts.
Therefore, xStocks' advantage lies in its faster and more direct trading access, but whether it can ultimately evolve from a trading product into a more mature on-chain stock network depends on the transparency of the underlying assets, the custody structure, and the ability to redeem in extreme circumstances.
3️⃣NYSE: Starting from traditional market infrastructure, creating a regulated digital securities platform
The NYSE's approach is different from Ondo and xStocks.
Ondo and xStocks originate from the Crypto world, bringing exposure to US stocks and ETFs onto the blockchain. The NYSE, on the other hand, starts from within the traditional securities market, aiming to bring the underlying processes of trading, settlement, registration, and rights confirmation onto the blockchain.
In March 2026, ICE/NYSE and Securitize signed a memorandum of understanding to build a more complete market infrastructure for tokenized securities, including securities registration, transfer agency, tokenization, and regulatory, operational and technical standards for the institutional digital securities market.
This is also the biggest difference between the NYSE route and on-chain projects.
For the NYSE, on-chain stocks are more than just price capture. The NYSE aims to address deeper, more fundamental issues in the securities market: After stocks are tokenized, who confirms the rights of the holders? Who registers and transfers them? How are transactions settled after completion? How can traditional securities processes such as dividends, voting, and corporate actions continue?
This also means that the NYSE's path won't be as fast as that of native Crypto projects. It requires regulatory approval, coordination among traditional financial institutions, and compatibility with existing securities market rules. Even if it eventually launches, it's highly unlikely to fully embrace a permissionless and highly open DeFi model.
IV. Current Status of the Three Routes: Ondo and xStocks are already distributing, while the NYSE is supplementing its rules.
If Chapter 3 discussed the differences between the three paths, then judging from the current progress, they have already moved at different paces: Ondo is expanding its distribution channels, xStocks is generating trading volume on CEXs, and the NYSE is still making progress at the level of rules and infrastructure.
1️⃣Ondo: From tokenized US Treasury bonds to an on-chain distribution network for US stocks and ETFs
Compared to its earlier tokenized US Treasury products, Ondo Global Markets has expanded its asset portfolio to include US stocks and ETFs.
More importantly, these assets are no longer confined to Ondo's own platform, but are beginning to enter more wallets, trading platforms, and on-chain entry points.
A key step is the integration with Binance Wallet.
In November 2025, Ondo announced that it had integrated 100+ tokenized stocks and ETFs into Binance Wallet, making them available to Binance Wallet users.
By February 2026, Binance had added 10 more Ondo tokenized US stocks and ETFs to Binance Alpha and Binance Wallet, including AAPLon, GOOGLon, TSLAon, NVDAon, and QQQon.
This signifies that Ondo is moving from a single platform to a larger traffic portal. Users may not necessarily need to directly access Ondo's own platform; they may also access related assets through portals such as Binance Wallet and Binance Alpha.
Ondo Global Markets' assets under management continue to expand. In May 2026, Ondo announced that Ondo Global Markets' TVL surpassed $1 billion, becoming the first tokenized stocks platform to reach this scale.
2️⃣xStocks: Faster exchange integration, becoming the gateway to US stock trading in the crypto world.
xStocks is now available on the stock token listings of several exchanges.
Kraken is one of the most important platforms. According to Kraken, xStocks currently supports tokenized versions of 100+ US stocks and ETFs; since its launch in June 2025, total trading volume has exceeded $25 billion.
Besides Kraken, exchanges such as Bybit and KuCoin have also integrated xStocks. With more platforms joining, xStocks is no longer just an experimental product on a single platform, but is beginning to become a US stock token solution adopted by multiple centralized exchanges.
Based on current progress, xStocks' achievements are mainly reflected in three aspects:
More Exchange Entry Points
Expanding the number of covered assets
Trading volume has already started to emerge.
From this perspective, xStocks has already provided preliminary validation of the demand for US stock tokens in the CEX scenario.
3️⃣NYSE: Slower, but moving closer to tokenized securities in terms of regulations.
The NYSE has not yet achieved the same user-side trading volume as Ondo and xStocks; progress has mainly occurred at the rules and infrastructure levels.
In December 2025, DTC received a Staff No-Action Letter from the SEC, allowing it to provide tokenization services for assets held in custody by DTC under certain conditions.
Subsequently, the NYSE also began to develop its own platform. In January 2026, ICE/NYSE announced the development of a tokenized securities platform, which plans to support 24/7 trading, instant settlement, USD-denominated orders, and stablecoin funding channels, but the platform still requires regulatory approval.
In March 2026, the NYSE and Securitize signed a memorandum of understanding to advance digital transfer agency, tokenization, and regulatory, operational, and technical standards required for the institutional-grade digital securities market, focusing on tokenized securities.
This month, NYSE Texas submitted a rule change to Rule 7.39 "Tokenized Securities," allowing participants who meet the criteria of the DTC Pilot Program to trade tokenized DTC Eligible Securities on exchanges.
From the current perspective, the NYSE's US stock token program has not yet entered the full rollout phase. A more realistic timeline is that a small-scale pilot program may begin in the second half of 2026. However, it is unlikely that stable trading volume and the integration of more brokerages and users will occur until after 2027.
The US digital asset regulatory framework is also moving in this direction. In May 2026, the CLARITY Act also clarified a direction: after securities are tokenized, they will not be removed from securities market rules simply because they are on the blockchain. Instead, new methods of trading, settlement, and disclosure will be sought within the existing securities regulatory framework.
V. Conclusion: RWA's next step is to ensure that finance is no longer divided by national borders.
The most interesting aspect of tokenizing US stocks is not just that it gives users another way to buy US stocks, but that it allows traditional financial assets to enter a more open and liquid network.
When US stocks, US bonds, and ETFs can be purchased with stablecoins, held in wallets, and distributed by exchanges, they are no longer just assets in a brokerage account, but begin to have stronger global liquidity.
In the short term, Ondo and xStocks may be faster. They are closer to crypto users and make it easier to generate early liquidity through wallets, CEXs, and on-chain applications. For users, the primary issue these products address is "whether it's easier to gain exposure to US stocks."
However, in the long run, regulated infrastructure like the NYSE will not be absent.
If the DTC, NYSE, Securitize, and related regulatory frameworks mature, tokenized securities may no longer be just on-chain price exposure, but will begin to resemble the form of digital assets recognized by traditional securities markets. At that stage, on-chain projects will no longer be concerned with "whether there are users trading," but rather whether they can access a clearer system for registration, custody, settlement, and rights confirmation.
Therefore, the tokenization of US stocks will not necessarily be a life-or-death struggle between the Crypto route and the TradeFi route.
A more likely outcome is that in the short term, projects like Ondo and xStocks will educate users and demonstrate liquidity and use cases; in the long term, traditional infrastructure such as the NYSE and DTC will fill the gaps in regulation, settlement, and rights confirmation.
At that point, if Crypto projects want to remain at the core, they can no longer just be front-end transaction portals; they need to establish deeper connections with the regulated underlying market structure.
This also determines RWA's future competitive focus.
It's not simply about putting a few stocks on the blockchain; it's about finding a balance between open liquidity and compliant infrastructure to allow traditional financial assets to truly enter a more globalized and trustworthy digital market.
