ondo finance Invesco has hired former ETF executive and Grayscale managing director John Hoffman to expand its tokenized investment products beyond stocks and Treasury notes.
Hoffman joins the company as managing director and head of product portfolio after serving as head of distribution and partnerships at Grayscale Investments, best known for its digital asset fund. Before that, he spent nearly two decades at $2.5 trillion asset manager Invesco, where he most recently led the firm’s ETF and index strategy business in the US.
His focus will be on the creation and distribution of token portfolios, including investment baskets developed with asset managers and strategies built around Oondo’s existing products.
The appointment points to Oondo’s plans to move beyond tokenized versions of individual assets toward investment products managed on blockchain rails.
“Our next step is to build the world’s most trusted platform for intelligently managed, on-chain investment portfolios,” Hoffman told CoinDesk in an interview.
“It took 30 years for ETFs to go from niche product to default vehicle,” he said. “Onchain finance will compress that timeline dramatically. The infrastructure is here and the next generation of portfolio products will be built onchain.”
The move comes amid the growing influence of tokenization on Wall Street and the crypto markets. The technology creates blockchain-based versions of traditional assets such as stocks, bonds and funds. Proponents say it could reduce settlement times, keep markets open around the clock and make it easier to move assets between trading venues. BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity and JPMorgan are among the financial firms that have launched or tested tokenized products.
RWA.xyz data shows that the market for tokenized assets has nearly tripled in a year, to more than $30 billion. Citi estimates that tokenized assets could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, while a joint report from Boston Consulting Group and Ripple estimates the market could grow to $18.9 trillion by 2033.
Ondo has been one of the biggest crypto-native players in the region. The company first gained popularity with tokenized treasury products OUSG and USDY, which provide investors blockchain-based exposure to U.S. government debt and other yield-bearing assets.
Recently, the company expanded into tokenized equities through Oendo Global Markets, which the company says has grown to over $1 billion in total value locked in more than 250 stocks and ETFs.