BlackRock Licenses Strategies for Ondo Tokenization

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GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors rebound 2-3% despite yields rising; BTC at $84.5k

Alts like Ondo and BP post monster moves on back of tokenization wave

SEC Commissioner Pierce calls for zkProofs to replace legacy KYC

BitGet confirms $350M drain, Magic Eden contracts suffer security exploit as well

OpenSea launches physical collectibles hub

Tokenization’s Next Phase Has BlackRock’s Name on It

The tokenization pitch has always been the same: take a thing that exists, put it on a blockchain, make it move faster. Treasuries, money market funds, stocks have been put onchain. Wednesday produced something different. BlackRock developed three portfolio strategies for Ondo, and each one now trades as a single token that carries an entire allocation, rebalances itself, and moves peer-to-peer between wallets. Nothing like it exists in a brokerage account.

This isn’t BlackRock’s first push into tokenization. It’s BUIDL put a money market fund onchain in March 2024. In July, Ondo tokenized BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF alongside Micron shares. Every one of those wraps a single instrument. These new tokens wrap a mix of assets meant to be rebalanced over time, with holdings, weights, and every rebalance visible onchain. That’s the step from digitizing existing products to building ones that only work here.

The three tickers are BLKHIon for high income, BLKDIGon for diversified growth, and BLKGRWon for high growth, available to eligible investors outside the US. ONDO rose about 30% on the news.

The structure is a good new example of how institutions can come onchain. BlackRock supplied the strategies and its name is on the tickers. Ondo’s disclosures say BlackRock is not the adviser, manager, sponsor, promoter, underwriter, marketer, or distributor, exercises no supervision or control, and has a potential conflict. So the world’s largest asset manager licensed its intellectual property into a crypto product while taking none of the operational or regulatory responsibility.

The institution provides the brand and the expertise. The crypto firm provides the rails, the distribution, and the liability. Everyone gets what they want, and the entity whose name sells the product carries the least exposure if it breaks. Every asset manager that follows will use the same shape. And with the recent green light from the SEC and CFTC, expect a whole lot more to follow…

Macro Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors are green and up 2-6%; BTC +1% at $84.5k; ETH +3% at $2,720; SOL +7% at $121; HYPE +3% at $93.50; ZEC +8% at $1,605

Top alt movers include QNT (+25%), Ondo (+21%), FET (+20%) and ENA (+16%)

Oil -1% at $92; Gold +1% at $4,345

Stock futures are green despite yields rising; DOW +0.3%, Nasdaq +0.7%

New York sued Polymarket over alleged illegal gambling and underage trading, seeking to bar the platform from operating in the state

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce called for zero-knowledge proofs to replace what she termed the KYC panopticon, letting users prove eligibility without surrendering underlying personal data

The Solana Foundation hired Binance’s former global CMO to lead an institutional push

Bitget confirmed roughly $351.6 million drained from hot and warm wallets Thursday, after onchain sleuths first flagged about $183 million, with withdrawals paused and CEO Gracy Chen saying a $464 million user fund covers the loss

The Fed proposed two stablecoin rules requiring full backing in short-term Treasuries, with operational-risk capital charges stepping from 2% on the first $20 billion outstanding down to 1% above $50 billion

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

The Bitcoin ETFs saw $191M in net inflows on Thursday; the ETH ETFs saw $66M in inflows

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were green up 5-7%; DOGE +7%, SHIB +6%, PEPE +6%, PENGU +3%, TRUMP +7%, SPX +5%, BONK +6%

Robinhood chain leaders rebounded 6-20%; Pons +7% to $450M; AI +7% at $242M; Cashcat +20% at $176M; Shroom +74%, Agrippa +120% and Juggernaut +30% led top movers

Solana top movers were led by BP +60%, Textit +30%, Collect +28x, NPCs +10x, Neet +40% and Jeanphil +90%; Ansem +15% to $171M

Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Hyperliquid led onchain protocols in revenue with $2.8M, followed by Pump at $1.88M, Stonk at $929k and Pons at $258k

Pump.fun founder Alon posted about how Pump does indeed care about memecoin shelf life and holders being rewarded, teasing more to come on this in Q4

Stonk posted its 7th straight $1M+ revenue day yesterday, with cumulative token buybacks now over 18%