Ondo Finance has appointed John Hoffman, former Invesco ETF and index strategies head and most recently a managing director at Grayscale Investments, as its new managing director and head of product portfolios. The move signals Ondo’s ambition to expand beyond tokenized versions of individual assets like U.S. Treasuries and equities into intelligently managed, onchain investment portfolios.
Hoffman arrives with nearly two decades of traditional finance experience at $2.5 trillion asset manager Invesco, where he led the firm’s ETF and index strategies in the Americas, and later oversaw distribution and partnerships at digital asset fund manager Grayscale. “Our next step is building the world’s most trusted platform for intelligently managed, onchain investment portfolios,” Hoffman told CoinDesk, adding that onchain finance will dramatically compress the 30-year timeline it took for ETFs to become mainstream.
Ondo Finance, an early mover in real-world asset tokenization with its OUSG (short-term U.S. government bond) and USDY (U.S. dollar yield) products, recently surpassed $1 billion in total value locked through Ondo Global Markets, which tokenizes stocks and ETFs. The new hire is aimed at developing fully managed tokenized portfolios—investment baskets built with asset managers or strategies layered on existing products—potentially opening the door to institutional-grade offerings on blockchain rails.
The tokenization sector has seen explosive growth, with the market for tokenized assets tripling in a year to over $30 billion. Projections from Citi foresee a $5.5 trillion market by 2030, while Boston Consulting Group and Ripple estimate a possible $18.9 trillion by 2033. Hoffman’s onboarding underscores the increasing convergence of traditional asset management and decentralized finance as Ondo positions itself to compete with both crypto-native protocols and established giants like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton.
