Welcome to FinTech TV here at Digital Asset Summit 2026 tokenization dominating conversations, while Franklin Templeton announcing a partnership with Ono Finance to launch tokenized versions of its ETFs.
This enables 24/7 trading directly through crypto wallets without traditional brokerage accounts, and Ono is tokenizing five of Franklin Templeton's funds.
Joining me to break this down is Ian De Bode, Chief Strategy Officer of Ondo Finance.
Ian, great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
Well, you were just on stage announcing this partnership with Franklin Templeton.
So walk us through the details.
Yeah, so Ono is a company.
We put traditional financial assets on crypto rails.
We started doing that about 3 years ago, first with treasuries, then with stocks, and now ETFs.
We have built a distribution network so that globally hundreds of millions of investors that only really have a crypto wallet or a crypto exchange account can now access institutional grade products in the US capital markets.
That includes stocks that are already live and now also 5 ETFs from Franklin Templeton, so that really a global investor audience that historically has struggled to get access to US capital markets can now access institutional grade products that historically they just haven't really had access to.
And walk us through the finer details of this partnership.
You mentioned these 5 ETFs from Franklin Templeton.
So how did you whittle it down?
Well, honestly, we rely on Franklin Templeton's expertise to basically suggest what they think is a good fit for this crypto native audience because it is different than what traditional finance is used to, right?
These are Hundreds of millions of people that live offshore that have had access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but don't necessarily really know even what is an ETF, right?
And so they try to, I think, select these ETFs that are tech-oriented, growth oriented, gold ETFs, right, things that people in a crypto native audience can truly wrap their head around.
That's where we start.
That's obviously not where we're going to end.
The partnership with Franklin Templeton involves them also designing more custom products down the line to really figure out what do these crypto native investors needs in order to further diversify their portfolio, put that into a model portfolio or other types of ETF which we can then continue to tokenize and put it into the hands of these investors.
Yeah, and you bring up an important point because when we think about the target audience here, they may not be monitoring the close of oil oil futures as closely or even looking at what's happening in terms of futures.
So when you're talking about timeline as well as what could be coming down the horizon, give us an idea of what you've been hearing from these crypto natives.
Yeah, I think, you know, right now in crypto itself it's a little bit of a bear market.
Crypto prices are pretty depressed.
There's a lot of macro uncertainty, so we do see that people aren't necessarily sure exactly what to invest in.
Bitcoin is pretty familiar, but it's also a little bit depressed.
Gold has had a very interesting rally.
Silver had an interesting rally, but both of those assets are now starting to go down as well.
There's a lot of talk about tech and whether or not that's overvalued, so.
People aren't exactly sure, quite frankly, what to invest in, which I think points people more and more to say, hey, why don't I have a model portfolio that gives me diversified exposure to both crypto as well as stocks, ETFs, commodities, and all these sorts of things.
But how do I get access to that in the investment portal that I'm used to being the crypto wallet?
And that's why Ando making these products available in these crypto wallets really is a transformation for a lot of these investors offshore.
They really have not ever had the experience and the ability to invest in these model portfolios and diversified portfolios.
So that's why I personally get quite excited to really give access to US capital markets, its institutional great products, Franklin Templeton products, to these investors so that they can build a diversified portfolio and have, quite frankly, a little bit less volatility in their lives.
Well, volatility has been the key word in 2026, not just in crypto, but also.
Across all asset classes.
So even when we're looking at equities, it's not just the US equity market that's seeing volatility.
It is global markets, whether we're talking about emerging markets or even European or Asian markets as well.
So a lot to keep our eyes on.
And for investors out there who are trying to find their way to access the US capital markets, they have a lot to learn and digest.
So when it comes to the future of this partnership, can you tell us what you envision?
Yeah, I think you mentioned already first and foremost we have to start educating these users, right?
Franklin Templeton as an asset manager has a lot of experience in explaining what do these products do, what is the return profile, what can you expect?
So I think it starts with user education and bringing these institutional great products, existing ETFs, on chain, make them available, get people to understand what is this in the first place, and then allowing them to invest 24/7.
I think what's next is using these public blockchain rails and the technology that has really matured up to the level where people are gonna be very capable and able to choose custom investment portfolios, right?
The ability to almost create your own ETF or create your own basket of investments, all of that process becomes incredibly easy and 24/7 once you deal with these tokenized stocks and ETFs.
So I think over the next call it.
6, 1218 months, I think you'll see large asset managers really look at this infrastructure and say, what kind of investment products can I now create in a seamless fashion that can trade 24/7 that before on traditional financial rails I couldn't really do.
How do you think about model portfolios that include both crypto commodities and stocks and ETFs all combined and having them trade 24/7?
I think that ultimately is where we're headed next.
Yeah, and you mentioned a lot of key themes that we're watching here at Digital Asset Summit 2026, and last time you and I sat down, it was right before the Ono summit kicked off.
So a lot has happened since then.
So give us an idea of where Ono is heading for the rest of 2026.
Yeah, it's been a very exciting couple of months.
We've had distribution partnerships with Binance, with BitGit, with Gate, with OKX, large crypto exchanges.
Think of them as like the Coinbase of Asia, so to speak.
To really have these distribution pathways to make these stocks, ETFs, other investment products available to the people who have that crypto exchange account, we've seen a tremendous growth in our assets.
I think at the Ando summit we're at like 400 million in tokenized stocks and ETFs.
There's more or less double that in less than 6 weeks.
So we're Seeing incredible growth.
There really is a lot of untapped demand offshore for access, seamless access to US capital markets and instruments that trade 24/7.
So that's where we're really focusing.
Where we're going next is really leaning into new product structures that can trade 24/7 but include stuff like perpetual swap.
Um, so you'll see more from us, uh, in that direction over the next couple of months.
Perpetual swaps, broader asset management, model portfolios, really bringing capital markets and prime brokerage on chain in 2026.
Well, Ian, it was great talking to you here at Digital Asset Summit 2026.
I appreciate your time and thank you so much for all of your insights.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you.
