Ondo Finance said founder Nathan Allman died on May 25, 2026, without disclosing the cause. The company moved quickly to appoint longtime executive Ian De Bode as CEO, placing the tokenized real-world asset platform under new leadership during a sensitive moment for the business.
Founder’s death came after Ondo crossed $1 billion in TVL
Allman founded Ondo Finance in 2021 after working at Goldman Sachs. His goal was to build an open financial system using blockchain rails, with an early focus on bringing assets such as U.S. Treasuries on-chain so a broader set of users could access them. Before the news of his death became public, the platform had already reached a major threshold, reporting more than $1 billion in total value locked across several blockchains.
The company said it would keep building around Allman’s vision. Public reaction centered on condolences, but the internal response was operational: keep the leadership structure intact and avoid disruption while the platform continues to expand its RWA footprint.
Ian De Bode takes over after years in strategy and operations
De Bode joined Ondo Finance in 2023 as chief strategy officer and became president in late 2025. According to the source material, he had already been overseeing day-to-day operations and product work for more than two years, giving him a detailed understanding of how the company runs. The rest of the senior team is staying in place, including Vice Chairman Patrick McHenry.
The speed of the handover matters. Ondo is trying to show that leadership continuity is already built into the organization, and that its commercial and product roadmap will keep moving despite the loss of its founder.
New CEO keeps focus on tokenized securities and institutional rails
De Bode brings a traditional finance background and previously led digital asset work at McKinsey. The strategy described in the source centers on moving assets such as stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries onto public blockchains. Rather than framing blockchain as a replacement for traditional finance, he is positioning Ondo as a bridge between established financial markets and DeFi.
That approach includes building infrastructure for large institutions that want to issue tokenized products. The thesis is tied to utility, not just packaging: tokenized assets can potentially function as collateral around the clock, opening new revenue opportunities and different market structures. Ondo is also advancing Ondo Global Markets, an initiative aimed at bringing hundreds of publicly listed securities on-chain and allowing tokenized spot assets to be used as collateral for perpetual futures.
ONDO token weakens as broader market pressure builds
The source said the ONDO token fell 6% to 4.6% over the last 24 hours, trading around $0.416. It linked the decline mainly to broader market conditions rather than the executive transition alone. Over the previous two weeks, institutional investors had pulled more than $2.7 billion from Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, adding pressure across the altcoin market.
The article also noted that if Bitcoin holds support at $76,088, ONDO could stabilize near $0.40. That point was presented as market observation, not company guidance. From an operating standpoint, Ondo remains focused on blockchain-native infrastructure and the expansion of tokenized securities markets.