A bitter corporate control fight has broken out at tokenized real-world asset issuer Ondo Finance following the death of founder Nathan Allman earlier this year. According to three Delaware Chancery Court filings, Allman's estate alleges that former President and current CEO Ian De Bode unlawfully seized control of the company after the founder's death in May. The lawsuit centers on the period immediately after Allman's death, when his voting power became part of his estate and could not immediately be exercised until his mother, Kathleen Allman, was formally appointed personal representative through Hawaii probate proceedings on June 26. The estate alleges that before probate concluded, De Bode wrongly claimed he automatically became CEO under Ondo's bylaws, elected himself as the company's sole director through a voting agreement, and began taking corporate actions including hiring advisors and approving performance grants.
Despite the ongoing corporate dispute, Ondo Finance has appointed Adam Schlisman, former CFO of Blockchain.com and Monashee Investment Management, as its new chief financial officer as the tokenized-assets firm expands its onchain capital markets business. Schlisman brings extensive financial experience, having previously overseen finance, treasury and risk at Blockchain.com during a period of rapid growth, and most recently served as CFO of macro hedge fund Monashee Investment Management. As reported by CoinDesk, Schlisman stated that Ondo has reached the inflection point every finance leader looks for, with Ondo Stocks crossing $1 billion in TVL and the growth of Ondo Perps indicating tokenized markets are moving from early adoption to institutional scale. His appointment comes as part of a series of executive hires, including former Grayscale and Invesco executive John Hoffman as managing director and head of product portfolios in June.
Despite the platform's strong performance, ONDO faces aggressive selling pressure in both spot and derivatives markets as whale activity intensifies. According to AMBCrypto, two large wallets transferred 10.712 million ONDO to Coinbase, with one wallet depositing 4.125 million ONDO worth $1.57 million and another institutional wallet adding 6.587 million ONDO valued near $2.51 million. The token has experienced an 11.3% drawdown since reaching a local high of $0.427 on Thursday, July 30, despite rallying 2.24% in the past 24 hours with a 2% increase in daily trading volume. Both Spot Taker CVD and Futures Taker CVD remained seller-dominant, indicating aggressive sell orders continue to outweigh market buys across spot and derivatives markets. The Open Interest rose by 1.95% for the day, but technical indicators suggest further ONDO losses are expected, particularly if the $0.37 area is flipped from support to resistance.
Ondo Finance has achieved remarkable growth in its perps trading platform since launching less than a month ago. According to reports from AMBCrypto, the platform's daily perps volume has doubled from $128 million to over $300 million, representing a 2x increase from launch levels recorded on July 7. The cumulative perps volume reached a new high of $5.996 billion three weeks after launch, positioning Ondo as the fourth-largest perps DEX by tokenized equity trading volume on July 31, surpassing both Lighter and AsterDEX. The platform's Open Interest (OI) hit a new peak level of $74.77 million, indicating strong trader interest in tokenized equities, indices, and commodities including Nvidia, Tesla, oil, gold, and the S&P 500 with up to 20x leverage traded 24/7. The perps volume growth momentum continues, with the platform potentially challenging leading decentralized exchanges Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter if growth momentum persists.
The corporate control battle has escalated into formal legal proceedings, with Kathleen Allman initially seeking a cooperative transition before expanding the board and voting to remove De Bode from all company positions at a July 24 board meeting. According to the complaint, Allman appointed herself to the board, adopted an interim policy allowing ordinary business operations to continue, reaffirmed De Bode as president and requested basic corporate information while expressing a desire to work collaboratively. However, the estate alleges those efforts failed after De Bode and the company's outside counsel refused to recognize her actions or provide the requested corporate records. The estate is seeking an expedited ruling because uncertainty over who controls the company could affect contracts, expenditures, equity issuances and other corporate decisions. In response, Ian De Bode stated that Kathy Allman's decision to file a lawsuit is regretful, calling it clearly not in the interests of the company, its stockholders, the team, or the Ondo ecosystem. De Bode emphasized that the company continues to have the support of key stakeholders, including its lead investors and the Ondo Foundation.
Ondo Finance has continued expanding its institutional operations through multiple product lines and infrastructure improvements. The company recently replaced its previously announced Ondo Chain with the Ondo Network, an execution layer designed to combine centralized exchange-like trading speeds with self-custody and onchain settlement. Ondo Perps became the first application launched on the new infrastructure, allowing traders outside the United States to access perpetual futures linked to equities and commodities while using tokenized real-world assets as collateral. Additionally, Ondo's SEC-registered broker-dealer subsidiary Oasis Pro Markets received expanded FINRA permissions covering a range of securities activities, creating regulated infrastructure for future tokenized securities offerings in the United States. The platform has expanded beyond Treasury products OUSG and USDY into tokenized stocks through Ondo Global Markets, which previously crossed $1 billion in total value locked. The Ondo Board of Directors stated it remains committed to founder Nate Allman's belief that onchain markets are the future of finance and is focused on serving the community without interruption while searching for his successor.
