Standard Chartered-backed Zodia Custody joins Ondo’s Global Markets Alliance

Zodia Custody, a digital assets custody platform backed by Standard Chartered, has joined the Global Markets Alliance, an initiative by Ondo Finance aimed at promoting interoperability across the tokenized assets market.

As the Global Markets Alliance’s newest member, Zodia Custody adds to a group of industry players that include Solana Foundation, LayerZero, BitGo, Fireblocks, Jupiter, Trust Wallet, 1inch, Alpaca, and Bitget.

Ondo Finance announced the Zodia Custody move via X.

Like the other members, Zodia Custody will leverage its infrastructure, security and compliance features to help advance the tokenization of capital markets.

The on-chain efforts aligns with the institution-first digital assets custodian’s traction across the ecosystem, efforts that include the support for institutional decentralized finance on the TON blockchain, Berachain and RWA platform Polymesh.

Why tokenization?

The Global Markets Alliance’s areas of focus across the real-world assets on-chain ecosystem includes tokenized stocks, exchange-traded funds, money market funds and private credit. RWA on-chain is a rapidly expanding market, with major players, including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity Investments, driving adoption to the next level.

The key to growing tokenization lies in its feature that enables the bridging of traditional finance and blockchain, with real-world assets wrapped into tokens issued on the blockchain.

Investors taking positions with these assets benefit from 24/7 trading, fractional ownership and on-chain transparency and accessibility. With institutional clients eyeing the tokenization opportunity, major Wall Street banks have had no option but to consider launching their own tokenized assets initiatives.

Unlocking capital efficiency

Zodia, which also offers a staking solution, counts asset managers, banks, crypto natives, governments, hedge funds, and private wealth firms among its partners. 

The platform recently launched Zodia Rewards, its opt-in token rewards program targeted for institutional clients. Clients can enjoy rewards on supported stablecoins, including USDC (USDC), Ethena USDe (USDE) and the Global Dollar Network.

“Stablecoins are being adopted far beyond crypto capital markets, emerging as a tool to complement traditional financial rails for cross-border payments. We see this value, and as a custodian, we want to play our part to help unlock further capital efficiencies,” Anoosh Arevshatian, chief product officer at Zodia Custody, said at the time.