Ondo Finance said on July 27 that it is launching Ondo Network, a new high-performance execution layer designed to pair centralized exchange, or CEX, trading speeds with blockchain-based non-custodial security and settlement.
CEO Ian De Bode called Ondo Network an “evolved version” of the earlier Ondo Chain plan. The company will not operate two networks at the same time and has changed course from building a full blockchain to focusing on an execution-layer design.
A shift away from the full-chain roadmap
According to Ondo, the original idea behind Ondo Chain was to bring real-world assets fully on-chain. But after building the Ondo Perps perpetuals trading platform and speaking with users, the company concluded that the main bottleneck in the current market is not asset settlement. It is execution efficiency.
Ondo Network uses a design that separates execution, validation, and settlement. The company said the network isolates the execution environment with secure hardware, aiming to increase trading speed while keeping user assets self-custodied, trades verifiable, and blockchain access permissionless.
Ondo Perps is the first application
Ondo Perps is the first application built on the new network. It supports 24-hour trading in stock and commodity perpetual contracts and lets users post tokenized real-world assets as collateral.
Ondo said the network could also support other applications that need high performance, privacy protection, and verifiable execution, including spot trading, lending, and structured products.
ONDO token role stays the same
The launch of Ondo Network will not change the role of the ONDO token, according to the company. De Bode said ONDO will remain the governance and incentive token for Ondo’s real-world asset ecosystem and market infrastructure.
He added that as the network becomes more decentralized over time, ONDO will be used to coordinate incentives for validators, observers, and other ecosystem participants.