Grvt eyes $100 million USDY position in Ondo Finance tie-up

CeDeFi platform Grvt is partnering with tokenization firm Ondo Finance to build a $100 million position in Ondo’s USDY over the next year. 

As part of the plan, Grvt (pronounced “gravity”) will integrate the yield-bearing asset into Grvt Earn, allowing the platform to hold and manage USDY on its balance sheet so that the returns feed into the single base rate users already receive — without requiring them to acquire the token themselves. 

 “We built Grvt Earn so users can keep their capital productive without having to manage the financial plumbing underneath it,” said Hong Yea, CEO of Grvt. “Together, we are creating a model where one balance can draw from multiple financial markets while remaining ready to trade.”

USDY is a tokenized secured note backed primarily by short-term U.S. Treasurys, Treasury-based ETF shares, and bank deposits. It is the third-largest such tokenized product, with about $2.14 billion in assets under management and approximately 15,626 holders. 

“Ondo gives us a high-quality connection to the U.S. Treasury market, and our target of building a USDY position toward $100 million reflects the scale at which we believe tokenized assets can support everyday onchain financial products,” Yea said. 

At a current APY of about 3.5%, Grvt’s fully deployed $100 million position would return about $3.5 million in annualized gross yield. USDY accrues yield daily. 

Grvt’s allocation would also correspond to roughly 4.6% of USDY’s current AUM and would bolster Grvt Earn’s existing yield sources, including platform revenue and Aave lending. 

The move is part of a trend of firms stepping into onchain fixed-income markets, which is now one of the more established areas of tokenization, following products like BlackRock’s BUIDL and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI money market funds. Major Wall Street firms from JPMorgan to WisdomTree have launched or expanded tokenized Treasury or short-duration fixed-income products.

Grvt, which operates as a hybrid decentralized exchange built on Ethereum scaling layer ZKsync, raised $19 million in Series A funding last September. The platform recently released a token.