Trust Wallet CEO and Ondo Finance CSO on Why It’s the Right Time to Bring U.S. Stocks and ETFs On-Chain

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization has long been hailed as a trillion-dollar opportunity for crypto, but until recently it’s been largely out of reach for everyday users. Trust Wallet and Ondo Finance are aiming to change that through their recent partnership. 

In this interview with BeInCrypto, Eowyn Chen, CEO of Trust Wallet, and Ian de Bode, Chief Strategy Officer of Ondo Finance, explain why they believe their collaboration will turn the promise of tokenization into practical financial access for millions and what challenges still stand in the way.

What made this partnership between Trust Wallet and Ondo the right fit, and what problem are you solving together that wasn’t addressed before?

Eowyn Chen: This partnership connects two missing pieces of the Web3 puzzle: high-quality, institutionally structured real-world assets from Ondo, and intuitive, self-custodial access for everyday users via Trust Wallet.

Together, we’re addressing a long-standing gap in access. Traditional financial markets often exclude people by design — due to geography, regulation, or infrastructure. By bringing tokenized exposure to assets like stocks and ETFs directly into Trust Wallet, we’re letting users around the world tap into markets they were previously locked out of — without needing a brokerage account, and without giving up control of their funds.

Ian de Bode: This integration is a strong fit because it combines Trust Wallet’s global user reach with Ondo’s mission of expanding access to traditional financial services. Trust Wallet is used by over 200 million users worldwide, and Ondo Global Markets expands access to U.S. capital markets to global, non-U.S. investors. Together, we’re enabling a new category of financial access.

We fundamentally believe that Ondo Global Markets will do for US equities what stablecoins have done for the U.S. dollar. Essentially, it’s about global access to these assets in a seamless way. Just as stablecoins radically opened access to the US dollar, in a similar way Ondo Global Markets is tokenizing US stocks & ETFs that represent the economic exposure to the underlying assets, and like stablecoins, makes them available on-chain so that anyone globally can access them.

RWA tokenization has been talked about for years. Why is now the moment to bring tokenized stocks and ETFs to millions of users, and what’s changed in the macro backdrop that makes this viable?

Ian de Bode: People underestimate just how massive this market opportunity really is. The U.S. public equities market has grown to over $60 trillion. However, global investors have historically faced barriers to accessing these markets due to high fees, limited access, transfer frictions, platform fragmentation, and geographic exclusions. These problems have persisted for decades, locking millions out of capital markets and stifling innovation. 

Today, there are an estimated 400 to 500 million crypto exchange accounts worldwide. And yet, many of these global users don’t even have traditional brokerage accounts. 

Eowyn Chen: That gap is exactly why the timing feels different now. We’ve hit an inflection point. On one side, regulatory clarity and institutional-grade RWA infrastructure are finally maturing. On the other, we have a growing user base — especially in emerging markets — that’s hungry for alternatives to volatile local currencies or inaccessible stock markets.

Ian de Bode: Which is why if you can take stocks and seamlessly tokenize them onto crypto rails, you’re not just widening access, you’re unlocking an entirely new financial frontier.

Eowyn Chen: And the broader shift is that self-custody is no longer a niche concept. Wallets are evolving from being just crypto tools into full-fledged Web3 companions. This means the timing is right to make products like tokenized RWAs both accessible and useful at scale.

Trust Wallet is positioning itself as the first major self-custody wallet to support tokenized RWAs across chains. How do you balance keeping this simple for 200M users while introducing such a complex product?

Eowyn Chen: The key is to meet users where they are. Most people don’t wake up asking for “tokenized RWAs” — they want tools that help them protect the value of their assets and access opportunities. We’ve designed the experience so users don’t need to understand the technical layers to benefit. Discovery, network fees, and redemption mechanics are abstracted behind a familiar interface. And because it’s all native to Trust Wallet, users stay in control of their assets — no new accounts, no custodians, no compromises. 

We see this as a foundation for the Web3 neobank of the future: onchain-native, self-custodial, but simple enough for anyone to use.

Tokenized assets often raise skepticism — are they truly backed, are they just synthetics, will they last? How does Ondo’s model build the trust and transparency needed to get past that skepticism?

Ian de Bode: Ondo is committed to setting the highest standard in tokenization, demonstrating that thoughtful, transparent, and well-regulated wrapped tokens not only offer immediate benefits but also pave the way for broader financial innovation. Not all tokenized equities are created equal. With Ondo Global Markets, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how best to bring real-world assets like securities on-chain in a way that’s practical, secure, liquid, and scalable.

Ondo tokenized stocks are digital tokens that deliver total-return exposure to publicly traded assets. Each token mirrors the economic performance of its underlying asset.

As for the backing of our assets, Ondo tokenized stocks are all fully backed by their underlying stocks and ETFs, together with cash in transit. Further, the issuer is required to ensure that there is additional collateral available — above and beyond this full backing — at all times to overcollateralize its obligations to token holders.

This collaboration positions Ondo as the issuer and Trust Wallet as the access point. How does that bridge institutional-grade RWAs with a retail user who may never have touched a brokerage account before?

Ian de Bode: For many younger and international users, crypto has become their first gateway into financial markets. These are individuals who may never have opened a brokerage account, or who face significant barriers to accessing U.S. equities, from high fees and fragmented platforms to outright geographic exclusions.

Eowyn Chen: And that’s exactly where self-custody changes the game. Traditionally, accessing U.S. stocks or ETFs meant going through intermediaries, submitting KYC, and hoping your country was on the approved list.

Ian de Bode: Ondo Global markets is bridging that gap, providing the infrastructure for applications like Trust Wallet to integrate tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs while retaining access to deep liquidity from traditional exchanges. This is about democratizing access to U.S. capital markets, meeting users where they are, and giving developers the tools to build the future of on-chain capital markets in a way that feels natural, intuitive, and accessible.

Eowyn Chen: From the user’s perspective, nothing changes in how they interact with the blockchain. With tokenized RWAs in Trust Wallet, they simply discover, hold, and use these assets like they would with any token — except now they’re getting exposure to real-world market performance.

We’re not trying to replicate the legacy system. We’re building a new path to access — one that’s open, on-chain, and user-first from day one.

Between regulation, liquidity, and user education, which challenge do you both see as the most urgent to solve — and how are you approaching it?

Eowyn Chen: For us, it’s user education — hands down. Regulation will evolve, and liquidity will grow as adoption increases. But even the best infrastructure doesn’t matter if users don’t understand the risks or how the product fits into their journey.

That’s why we’re embedding explainers, disclaimers, and guardrails directly into the wallet experience. And why we’re being very deliberate with how we roll out RWA support — region by region, issuer by issuer. Responsible onboarding is the only way to build long-term trust.

Ian de Bode: Clear, well-designed regulatory frameworks are essential to unlocking the full potential of this technology. Recent regulatory momentum like the Genius Act help provide much-needed clarity around how tokenized assets can be issued, traded, and used within the existing financial system. In short, thoughtful regulation like this is a net positive for the ecosystem. 

Setting clearer rules paves the way for greater adoption, institutional participation, and ultimately broader trust in tokenized assets, exactly the vision Ondo is working to advance.

Looking two to three years ahead, how will you measure success for this partnership? Is it adoption numbers, new asset classes, or reshaping how people think about self-custody wallets?

Eowyn Chen: All three — but we’ll know we’ve succeeded when someone who never had access to a brokerage account is able to gain meaningful, on-chain exposure to global markets, on their terms, in their language, using tools they trust.

In parallel, we hope to shift the wallet paradigm itself. Instead of being a vault or a speculative gateway, wallets can become everyday financial companions — helping people save, grow, and interact with the world’s value systems, all from their phone.

Ian de Bode: In the near term, it’s about adoption, making sure millions of users can seamlessly access and benefit from tokenized U.S. securities. We launched Ondo Global Markets with over 100 U.S. securities, and we plan to expand to hundreds more by year-end. That scale and breadth of access will be a key marker of progress.

But looking further ahead, success will also mean a shift in mindset. Just as people have come to recognize that stablecoins can be a better version of the dollar, we believe they’ll increasingly realize that tokenized assets — whether equities, ETFs, or beyond — are better on-chain than offchain. The advantages of blockchain, such as composability, programmability, and accessibility, will unlock entirely new innovations for asset management, wealth management, and brokerage. Over the next two to three years, we expect to see this innovation surprise a lot of people.

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