Ondo Perps launches with 20x leverage for tokenized stocks

Ondo Finance is launching Ondo Perps, an on-chain platform designed for perpetual futures trading in U.S. stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and commodities, providing eligible traders (from outside the U.S.) with leverage of up to 20x on such stocks as Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA), among others.

Over the weekend, the project aimed to create hype about its launch via posts on its official X account. The company wrote on Monday, “Tomorrow. Equities are going perpetual.” The first post attracted attention to the level of leverage – “Up to 20 x leverage.” In the second post, Ondo stated that they are attempting to access an estimated market worth in excess of $59 trillion, referring to the combined value of global equities, commodities and index markets that perpetual futures could potentially address.

A perpetual future is a derivative contract having no due date, enabling traders to keep their positions, either sell or buy, for as long as it takes. There is no expiration date for this type of investment and it provides an opportunity for traders to make profits in a situation where value is not falling sharply. In this sense, the product is characterized by a mechanism of periodic funding payments made from long accounts to short accounts in order to keep its prices associated with the market. The product has become the dominant derivatives instrument in crypto markets, and Ondo is extending the model to publicly traded U.S. equities that ordinarily trade only during exchange hours.

Ondo expands tokenized trading

Ondo presented Ondo Perps for the very first time at the Summit in 3rd February 2026, calling it the first-ever capital-efficient solution for equity perpetual futures. It allows traders to use various tokenized US stocks, ETFs as well as other tokenized assets as collateral instead of having to use cryptocurrencies and goes a step ahead by enabling cross-margining across multiple positions.

Its initial offering will include trading in AAPL, AMD, AMZN, COIN, CRCL, GOOGL, HOOD, INTC, META, MSFT, MSTR, NFLX, NVDA, ORCL, PLTR, QQQ and TSLA together with gold (XAU) and silver (XAG). The service is available 24 hours a day throughout the week. In addition, the protocol takes care of corporate actions such as splits and dividends, among others, for the users. Note that there are restrictions in terms of usage by US citizens due to regulatory requirements.

Ondo has introduced the product on the basis of its previous experience in the field of tokenization. The total amount of funds used in the protocol is over $2.5 billion; thus, making Ondo one of the biggest providers of issued tokenized US Treasuries alongside other types of real-world assets (RWAs).

Since trading is starting today, important market metrics such as trading volume at market opening, open interest, funding rates, bid-ask spread and liquidity performance are yet to be defined. These numbers will probably serve as the first representation of market reception from institutional and retail parties once the trading starts.

Ondo takes on Coinbase and Kraken

Ondo is stepping into a competitive market rather than creating a new one. Kraken informed on what it claimed to be the first regulated tokenized equity perpetual futures on the market on February 24, enabling its clients from 110 nations to work with leverage of up to 20 times for trading equity contracts, index contracts and gold contracts.

Coinbase launched its own perpetual equity futures specifically for eligible non-U.S. customers about a month later on March 20. The exchange offers leverage at the rate of 10 times for stock contracts while it can be equal to 20 times for ETF contracts, , with all contracts settled in USDC as part of its broader “Everything Exchange” strategy.

The competition reflects broader momentum in tokenized real-world assets. Decrypt reported earlier this year that on-chain RWAs had expanded from roughly $6.3 billion to approximately $25 billion over the previous year despite weakness across broader crypto markets. The report also noted that Binance had begun offering Ondo-issued tokenized assets through Binance Alpha, highlighting growing demand for blockchain-based exposure to traditional financial instruments.

While leverage has become broadly comparable across platforms, each exchange differentiates itself through collateral models, supported assets and regulatory coverage. Ondo’s primary distinction is allowing tokenized real-world assets—including tokenized equities and ETFs—to serve directly as trading collateral rather than relying exclusively on crypto assets.

What investors will be watching next is how quickly Ondo builds meaningful liquidity. Early measures such as daily trading volume, open interest, funding-rate stability and order-book depth will determine whether the platform can compete with larger centralized exchanges that already operate established perpetual futures markets. The company has said additional stocks, ETFs and commodities are planned following today’s launch.

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