Ondo Finance's tokenized stock platform is holding above $1 billion in value while trading activity across its broader ecosystem continues to accelerate. Ondo Stocks now has $1.01 billion in total value locked and has processed $27 billion in cumulative trading volume since launching in September 2025. The platform supports more than 440 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, with each token backed by the corresponding security held through licensed U.S. custodial broker-dealers. Centralized exchanges alone have accounted for $18 billion in Ondo Stocks volume, with $206 million of tokenized assets currently held across Binance, Gate, Bitget and MEXC. Ondo Perps, launched in July, has already cleared more than $8 billion in cumulative volume, including over $5 billion during the past 30 days. Ondo's overall product suite has now crossed 200,000 holders, rising nearly 20% over the past month. The company's tokenized Treasury products are expanding alongside the equities business, with USDY growing to $2.15 billion in total asset value across 12 networks, more than doubling since the start of 2026. Ondo Stocks remains limited to eligible non-U.S. persons, while Ondo Perps is also unavailable in the United States and other restricted jurisdictions.
Bitcoin Rallies to Two-Week High Above $80,000 as Altcoins Outperform
Bitcoin rallied to a two-week high on Friday, climbing back above the psychologically important $80,000 level, with the broader crypto market joining the advance. According to Bitget Wallet research analyst Lacie Zhang, US spot ETF inflows and short covering helped push it through the psychologically important $80,000 level. The surge came despite a Fed rate hike earlier in the week and the failure of the Clarity Act, legislation that would have created a federal framework for the broader digital asset industry; after the measure failed to advance in the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in on Thursday with a conditional exemption allowing the trading of certain tokenized stocks on blockchains for the next five years. While bitcoin led the move, ether, binance and solana have outperformed over the past month, gaining 35%, 25% and 41% respectively, and rotation into alternative tokens and tokenized versions of Nvidia, Tesla and the S&P 500 helped lift the total crypto market capitalization to $2.66 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Fundstrat's Sean Farrell said crypto has absorbed a fairly aggressive hawkish repricing without much damage, while Compass Point's Ed Engel last week upgraded Coinbase to Neutral from Sell, citing that BTC is recovering from a cyclical bottom.
SEC Unveils Trading Framework for Tokenized Stocks, S&P Acquires OpenZeppelin, DeFi Market Cap Hits $80 Billion
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission introduced a provisional, conditional exemption allowing certain tokenized U.S.-listed equities to trade on-chain under specified conditions, while S&P Global agreed to acquire OpenZeppelin, a firm specializing in smart contract security infrastructure. The SEC measure, set out in a "Statement on Innovation Exemptions" signed by Commissioner Mark T. Ueda, guarantees holders of equity tokens the same rights as holders of conventional shares and requires third parties to notify the issuer of the underlying stock in writing before dealing in tokenized shares. According to S&P Global, OpenZeppelin's technology has supported the transfer of more than $37 trillion in value cumulatively, including major stablecoins and tokenized funds. Following these announcements, the market capitalization of DeFi-related tokens rose about $7 billion on Friday, climbing 8.8% to $79.8 billion, while the total market capitalization of the broader crypto market rose 4% to $2.7 trillion. Hyperliquid's HYPE jumped 10.8% to an all-time high of about $90.46, giving it a market capitalization of $20.12 billion; Uniswap's UNI rose 29.1% over 24 hours to about $9.00, for a market capitalization of $5.59 billion; and Aave's AAVE gained 9.5% to about $135.28. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the SEC is trying to put in place as much of a crypto regulatory framework as it can under its existing authority, and described tokenization as a massive tide.
SEC Grants Five-Year Innovation Exemption for Tokenized U.S. Equities, Lifting Robinhood and Coinbase
The SEC announced a five-year conditional Innovation Exemption allowing eligible platforms to trade tokenized U.S. equities without standard exchange registration, sending shares of Robinhood up 7.6% and Coinbase up 10.5%. According to Reuters, the temporary framework lets digital asset brokerages and trading platforms support tokenized equity trading while the agency solicits public comments to shape permanent regulatory policies for on-chain securities. Tokenized equities represent traditional corporate shares as digital tokens on a blockchain, potentially enabling 24/7 trading, fractional ownership, and more efficient settlement. The move reduces compliance hurdles and waives full exchange registration requirements for qualifying participants, opening the door for platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood to launch new asset offerings and capture additional trading volume. The rally was further supported by a rebound in the broader cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin trading up roughly 2% near $78,000. Coinbase remains down 17.7% since the start of the year and trades at $194.63 per share, 49.7% below its 52-week high of $387.27 from October 2025.
