Ondo Spikes 8% as Ondo Finance Tests Instant Conversion From BlackRock’s Tokenized Fund to USDC

Ondo Finance’s governance token (ONDO) jumped Thursday after the tokenized asset platform tested out the newly introduced ability to do near-instant conversions between Circle’s USDC stablecoin and BlackRock’s new BUIDL token.

An Ondo wallet on Ethereum redeemed $250,000 worth of BUIDL tokens in exchange for USDC, Etherscan data shows. That was an attempt to try out the USDC-to-BUIDL feature announced Thursday by Circle, Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman said in a Telegram message to CoinDesk.

“We are using it to power instant 24/7/365 redemptions of OUSG into USDC,” Allman added. OUSG refers to the Ondo Short-Term U.S. Government Treasuries token backed by securities sold by the U.S. government.

ONDO gained as much as 8% as news about the transaction started circulating on social media crypto circles before paring some of its advance.

BlackRock, one of the world’s most powerful financial institutions, made headlines last month by entering the asset tokenization race, a red-hot sector in the crypto industry to place traditional financial instruments such as bonds, credit or commodities to blockchain rails.

The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, created with tokenization firm Securitize, holds cash, U.S. Treasury bills and repurchase agreements. Investment in the fund is represented by the Ethereum-based BUIDL token, which provides yield paid out via blockchain rails every day to token holders.

Ondo Finance was one of the early adopters of the fund, using it as a backing asset for its OUSG token.