Ondo Finance has appointed former Blockchain.com executive Adam Schlisman as its chief financial officer, adding another senior Wall Street and crypto finance veteran as the tokenized-assets company expands its institutional business.
Summary
- Ondo Finance has appointed former Blockchain.com CFO Adam Schlisman as its new finance chief.
- Schlisman joins as the tokenized asset platform continues expanding its institutional operations and product lineup.
- The appointment follows recent leadership and product hires, including former Invesco executive John Hoffman.
- Ondo has continued growing its tokenized markets business through Ondo Network, Ondo Perps and Ondo Global Markets.
According to a company press release issued Wednesday, Schlisman will oversee Ondo Finance’s financial operations after joining from global macro hedge fund Monashee Investment Management, where he served as chief financial officer. His appointment comes as the company continues building products and infrastructure for tokenized capital markets.
Ondo Finance adds another senior executive
Before joining Monashee, Schlisman spent several years as chief financial officer at Blockchain.com, where he managed finance, treasury and risk during a period of rapid expansion. Earlier in his career, he worked for nearly a decade at Graham Capital Management in portfolio management and risk-related roles.
Founded in 2021 by former Goldman Sachs executives, Ondo has grown into one of the largest tokenized real-world asset platforms. The company offers blockchain-based exposure to U.S. Treasuries, tokenized stocks and other financial products, with more than $3.5 billion across its platform, according to the release.
Commenting on his appointment, Schlisman said Ondo had reached a stage where institutional adoption was accelerating across multiple business lines.
“Ondo has reached the inflection point every finance leader looks for,” Schlisman said in emailed comments. “Ondo Stocks crossing $1 billion in TVL, the growth of Ondo Perps and work with traditional market infrastructure providers like DTCC all point to the same thing: tokenized markets are moving from early adoption to institutional scale. My mandate is to build the financial operations that can scale with them.”
His remarks reference several initiatives the company has introduced during recent months, including Ondo Stocks, the Ondo Perps derivatives platform and collaborations with established financial market infrastructure providers.
Institutional expansion continues across Ondo’s business
Schlisman’s arrival extends a series of executive appointments announced this year as Ondo builds out its leadership team.
In June, the company appointed former Grayscale and Invesco executive John Hoffman as managing director and head of product portfolios. Hoffman was tasked with developing tokenized investment portfolios in partnership with asset managers, expanding Ondo’s product lineup beyond individual tokenized Treasury products and equities.
The leadership expansion followed another significant change after Ondo founder Nathan Allman died unexpectedly in May. Longtime president Ian De Bode succeeded him as chief executive officer, with the company stating at the time that its strategy and product roadmap would continue without interruption.
Under De Bode’s leadership, Ondo has continued introducing new products and infrastructure while pursuing institutional partnerships across traditional finance and digital assets.
Ondo Network and tokenized markets remain central
Last month, Ondo replaced its previously announced Ondo Chain with the Ondo Network, an execution layer designed to combine centralized exchange-like trading speeds with self-custody and onchain settlement.
The company said the redesign followed discussions with prospective users while developing Ondo Perps, during which execution speed emerged as a larger obstacle than settlement capacity for institutional trading.
Rather than executing and settling every transaction on a public blockchain, the network processes trades inside trusted execution environments before settling asset transfers on public chains such as Ethereum. Ondo Perps became the first application launched on the new infrastructure, allowing traders outside the United States to access perpetual futures linked to equities and commodities while using tokenized real-world assets as collateral.
Separately, Ondo’s SEC-registered broker-dealer subsidiary Oasis Pro Markets also received expanded FINRA permissions covering a range of securities activities, creating regulated infrastructure for future tokenized securities offerings in the United States, although individual products remain subject to separate regulatory requirements.
Tokenized assets attract traditional finance talent
Schlisman’s appointment comes as competition in tokenized real-world assets continues to draw experienced executives from both Wall Street and the crypto industry.
Banks, asset managers and digital asset companies have increasingly introduced blockchain-based versions of Treasuries, money market funds, private credit products and equities as they test tokenized financial infrastructure.
Alongside its Treasury products OUSG and USDY, Ondo has expanded into tokenized stocks through Ondo Global Markets, which previously crossed $1 billion in total value locked. The platform is available across Solana, Ethereum and BNB Chain and integrates with exchanges, wallets and custodians including Binance, Bitget, MetaMask, Ledger and Blockchain.com.
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