Morning Minute: BlackRock Leans Deeper Into Tokenization with Ondo

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our daily news show ‘FOMO HOUR’ covering all of the top stories and market action.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rebound 2-3% despite yields rising; BTC at $84.5k
• Alts like Ondo and BP post monster moves on back of tokenization wave
• SEC Commissioner Pierce calls for zkProofs to replace legacy KYC
• BitGet confirms $350M drain, Magic Eden contracts suffer security exploit as well
• OpenSea launches physical collectibles hub

BitcoinBTC · USD

$82,951+1.72%

24H7D1M1YYTD

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$87.2k$85.3k$83.5k$81.6k

24h HighHigh$85,089

24h LowLow$83,212

VolVol$1.1B

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$50$100$500

Buy

🧱 Tokenization’s Next Phase Has BlackRock’s Name on It

The tokenization pitch has always been the same: take a thing that exists, put it on a blockchain, make it move faster. Treasuries, money market funds, stocks have been put onchain. Wednesday produced something different. BlackRock developed three portfolio strategies for Ondo, and each one now trades as a single token that carries an entire allocation, rebalances itself, and moves peer-to-peer between wallets. Nothing like it exists in a brokerage account.

This isn’t BlackRock’s first push into tokenization. It’s BUIDL put a money market fund onchain in March 2024. In July, Ondo tokenized BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF alongside Micron shares. Every one of those wraps a single instrument. These new tokens wrap a mix of assets meant to be rebalanced over time, with holdings, weights, and every rebalance visible onchain. That’s the step from digitizing existing products to building ones that only work here.

The three tickers are BLKHIon for high income, BLKDIGon for diversified growth, and BLKGRWon for high growth, available to eligible investors outside the US. ONDO rose about 30% on the news.

The structure is a good new example of how institutions can come onchain. BlackRock supplied the strategies and its name is on the tickers. Ondo’s disclosures say BlackRock is not the adviser, manager, sponsor, promoter, underwriter, marketer, or distributor, exercises no supervision or control, and has a potential conflict. So the world’s largest asset manager licensed its intellectual property into a crypto product while taking none of the operational or regulatory responsibility.

The institution provides the brand and the expertise. The crypto firm provides the rails, the distribution, and the liability. Everyone gets what they want, and the entity whose name sells the product carries the least exposure if it breaks. Every asset manager that follows will use the same shape. And with the recent green light from the SEC and CFTC, expect a whole lot more to follow…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are green and up 2-6%; BTC +1% at $84.5k; ETH +3% at $2,720; SOL +7% at $121; HYPE +3% at $93.50; ZEC +8% at $1,605
• Top alt movers include QNT (+25%), Ondo (+21%), FET (+20%) and ENA (+16%)
• Oil -1% at $92; Gold +1% at $4,345
• Stock futures are green despite yields rising; DOW +0.3%, Nasdaq +0.7%
• New York sued Polymarket over alleged illegal gambling and underage trading, seeking to bar the platform from operating in the state
• SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce called for zero-knowledge proofs to replace what she termed the KYC panopticon, letting users prove eligibility without surrendering underlying personal data
• The Solana Foundation hired Binance’s former global CMO to lead an institutional push
• Bitget confirmed roughly $351.6 million drained from hot and warm wallets Thursday, after onchain sleuths first flagged about $183 million, with withdrawals paused and CEO Gracy Chen saying a $464 million user fund covers the loss
• The Fed proposed two stablecoin rules requiring full backing in short-term Treasuries, with operational-risk capital charges stepping from 2% on the first $20 billion outstanding down to 1% above $50 billion

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were green up 5-7%; DOGE +7%, SHIB +6%, PEPE +6%, PENGU +3%, TRUMP +7%, SPX +5%, BONK +6%
• Robinhood chain leaders rebounded 6-20%; Pons +7% to $450M; AI +7% at $242M; Cashcat +20% at $176M; Shroom +74%, Agrippa +120% and Juggernaut +30% led top movers
• Solana top movers were led by BP +60%, Textit +30%, Collect +28x, NPCs +10x, Neet +40% and Jeanphil +90%; Ansem +15% to $171M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were slightly red; Punks -1% at 33.69 ETH, BAYC even at 6.89 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 3.41 ETH
• Identity MD (+10%) and Quotrons (+50%) led top movers
• OpenSea launched a physical collectibles hub aggregating graded trading cards from partner platforms across Pokémon, sports, and One Piece, with partners grading, vaulting, and insuring the cards while OpenSea handles trading from one wallet
• Magic Eden is suspected to have a security vulnerability allowing stealing of NFTs from wallets which approved a certain contract; white hat hackers moved thousands before they could be taken