Securitize vs Ondo vs Superstate

They are not competitors. Securitize is regulated infrastructure, Ondo is a product issuer, Superstate is a fund manager — which is why feature tables of the three mislead. This compares what each actually does, where each is regulated, what can be said about pricing, and the gap all three share.

What does each company actually do?

Securitize is regulated infrastructure: an SEC-registered transfer agent with affiliated broker-dealer and alternative trading system capability, providing issuance, register maintenance and distribution for other firms’ products. Ondo Finance is a product issuer: it creates and sells its own tokenized instruments. Superstate is a US fund manager: it operates registered-adviser fund structures that happen to be tokenized.

That is the whole comparison in one paragraph, and it explains why feature-by-feature tables of the three tend to mislead. They are not competing for the same mandate. A manager who wants someone to tokenize their fund is talking to Securitize. An allocator who wants tokenized Treasury exposure is buying from Ondo or Superstate. Conflating infrastructure with product is the error the market keeps making.

Securitize’s position is the most structurally interesting because it is the register. It acts as transfer agent for BlackRock’s BUIDL and for VanEck’s tokenized Treasury product among others, which means much of the category’s assets sit on a register it maintains. That is a concentration worth naming: a large share of tokenized US Treasury value depends on one firm’s transfer-agency operation.

Ondo runs two distinct products with different legal shapes — OUSG, a fund for qualified purchasers, and USDY, a note for non-US persons — and has built the widest chain footprint of the three. Superstate is the smallest and the most conventional: US funds, US adviser registration, Ethereum, and a strategy fund alongside the Treasury fund. Each is well-built for its own market.

Which asset classes does each cover?

Securitize is the broadest by a wide margin, because it is infrastructure rather than a product line: funds, private equity, private credit, equities and Treasury products, whatever its clients issue. Ondo covers short-duration US government exposure and cash-equivalent instruments. Superstate covers short-duration government securities plus a crypto carry strategy.

The practical read for an issuer: if your asset is not short-duration government debt, Ondo and Superstate are not candidates, because they do not tokenize other people’s assets. Securitize is, and the question then becomes jurisdiction rather than asset class.

For an allocator the read inverts. If you want Treasury exposure, Ondo and Superstate issue it and Securitize does not — Securitize is the register underneath several competing products, which is a different relationship and a different risk.

Where is each regulated, and can it serve EU issuers?

All three are US-regulated and none holds an EU authorisation. Securitize operates through SEC transfer-agent registration with affiliated broker-dealer and ATS entities. Ondo issues from US and offshore entities, with USDY structured for non-US persons and OUSG restricted to qualified purchasers outside the US. Superstate is a US registered investment adviser running US fund structures.

This is not a deficiency on their part. A US transfer agent with SEC registration is the correct provider for a US offering, and an offshore note for non-US persons is a coherent structure for its intended holders. The error is assuming a licence travels. It does not: US registration does not permit EU issuance or EU distribution, and no amount of chain coverage changes that.

For a European manager the consequence is concrete. Using any of the three means pairing them with an EU-authorised entity for issuance and placement, or accepting that the product sits outside an EU wrapper and that EEA investors reach it, if at all, through reverse solicitation. Our own group is one of the EU-licensed counterparties in that pairing — Black Manta Capital Partners is BaFin-licensed and operates under MiFID II — and we would rather state that as the factual answer to "who can issue in the EEA" than dress it as a comparison result.

What do they charge?

Publicly: not enough to compare. Securitize prices per mandate, and its fees depend on structure, investor count and which entities in the group are engaged. Ondo publishes a management fee for OUSG in its fund documents and states no explicit management fee for USDY, earning on the spread instead. Superstate states a management fee in fund documents available to eligible investors.

What can be said about the shape of the economics. Infrastructure is priced as setup plus recurring platform and per-investor fees, so it scales with holder count and activity. Product issuance is priced as a management fee on assets, or as a spread between the underlying yield and what reaches the holder. The two are not comparable on a single number, and any table presenting them side by side as basis points is comparing different things.

If you are evaluating cost, three questions produce a usable answer where a public table cannot. For infrastructure: what is the setup fee, the annual platform fee, the per-investor cost, and what is charged for a corporate action or a register migration? For a product: what is the net yield to me after all fees, on the same basis, over the last twelve months? And for both: what does it cost to leave — can the register be exported and operated elsewhere, and on what notice?

We would rather record "priced per mandate" and "not publicly stated" than publish estimates. A fee table that looks authoritative and is assembled from inference is worse for a reader than an honest gap, because it gets cited.

Which should you choose for which job?

Four common jobs, four different answers, and in two of them the answer is none of the three.

You are a US manager tokenizing a fund

Securitize. SEC transfer-agent registration, affiliated broker-dealer and ATS, and the deepest operating record in this specific job. Ondo and Superstate do not tokenize third-party funds.

You want tokenized US Treasury exposure as an allocator

Ondo or Superstate, depending on your investor status and preferred structure: USDY as a note for non-US persons, OUSG as a fund for qualified purchasers, USTB as a US fund. Compare on net yield and redemption mechanics rather than on chain count. Our comparison of tokenized treasury products, including EU access sets the field out product by product.

You are a European manager tokenizing a European fund

None of the three, on their own. You need an EU-authorised issuance and placement firm, an authorised manager, a depositary, and a register recognised in your domicile. Any of the three can be part of a structure; none can be the structure. The European process sets out what is actually required.

You are a European institution wanting Treasury exposure inside an EU wrapper

Also none of the three, today. No product from any of them is offered under an EU fund passport. That exposure inside an EU wrapper with an EU manager and depositary generally has to be commissioned rather than bought, which is a fund issuance rather than a product purchase.

What is missing from all three?

An EU wrapper. None of the three offers a product under an EU fund passport, and none can perform EU issuance and placement itself. For the largest pool of professional capital outside the US, all three are reached through non-US structures and reverse solicitation, which is a narrowing route and a supervisory risk for whoever relies on it.

Three further gaps, in descending order of how often they are volunteered. Register concentration: a large share of tokenized Treasury value sits on registers maintained by a single transfer agent, and no public disclosure explains what happens to those registers if that firm fails — a question every allocator should ask and few do. Cash-leg dependence: 24/7 mint and redeem against a stablecoin means exposure to that stablecoin’s issuer, which is a counterparty position rather than a settlement feature. And secondary liquidity: the ATS and venue infrastructure exists, order books largely do not, so most holdings are held to redemption rather than traded.

For balance, what all three do have that most of the market does not: real operating history, institutional counterparties, and products that have processed subscriptions and redemptions at scale through more than one market condition. That is not a small thing, and it is why they are the three names in this comparison.

And our own gap, on the same terms. COSIMO Digital can perform EU issuance and placement today through a BaFin-licensed MiFID II firm, which none of the three can. We cannot offer an authorised custody service today: Fortuna is registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider with the Central Bank of Ireland (register ref C459043, under s.106A of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Acts), with MiCA CASP authorisation in process and not yet effective. We are not a transfer agent at Securitize’s scale, we issue no tokenized Treasury product, and we operate no trading venue. Read the fifteen-platform comparison for the wider field, or the EU regulatory stack for why the EU wrapper question keeps recurring.