Ondo Finance denies sale talks after founder’s death

Ondo Finance denies seeking buyers after Nathan Allman’s death as an active Delaware court fight continues over company control.

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Ondo Finance has denied a report based on three anonymous sources that the tokenization company was offered to prospective buyers after founder Nathan Allman died on May 25, 2026.

Summary

• Ondo Finance denied seeking buyers after anonymous sources reported sale outreach following Nathan Allman’s death.
• Three sources said Ondo Finance was offered to prospective buyers after Allman died in May.
• Delaware court records show Kathleen Allman’s control case against Ondo Finance remains active since July.
• Ian De Bode remains acting CEO while court order limits major corporate changes during litigation.
• Ondo launched institutional share conversions this week, showing product operations continue during the governance dispute.

CoinDesk reported that outreach to prospective buyers took place sometime after Allman’s death, citing three people familiar with the matter. Two sources placed the outreach after May 25, but the report said it could not establish who initiated the effort or what valuation may have been discussed.

Ondo rejected the account. A company spokesperson called reports of a possible sale “wholly untrue” and said nobody at the company had sought buyers or authorized another party to do so. Allman’s estate declined to comment to CoinDesk.

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Ondo Finance rejects reported buyer outreach

The disputed sale account comes as control of Ondo remains before courts following Allman’s unexpected death at age 32. He died without a will while holding a controlling stake in Ondo Finance, leaving questions over who could exercise the voting rights attached to his shares.

After probate proceedings in Hawaii, Allman’s parents, Kathleen and Lawrence Allman, became heirs to his estate. Kathleen later received authority as personal representative and asserted that the estate’s voting rights allowed her to reconstitute Ondo’s board. De Bode disputed the estate’s attempt to remove him. The competing claims eventually reached the Delaware Court of Chancery.

The Delaware judiciary’s public CourtConnect docket shows Kathleen C. Allman v. Ondo Finance Inc., Case No. 2026-0978, was filed on July 24. The docket currently lists the civil case as active before Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick and shows no scheduled case events on the public page.

CoinDesk reported that the present court arrangement allows De Bode to oversee ordinary business while restricting major changes until the corporate-control dispute is resolved. One anonymous source said the litigation had likely stopped any possible sale process, but that assessment has not been confirmed by Ondo or Allman’s estate.

Court fight centers on who controls Ondo

Kathleen Allman’s Delaware complaint disputes De Bode’s authority after Nathan’s death. The estate alleges De Bode began presenting himself as CEO without valid board approval and later took steps to establish control while the estate’s voting rights were still passing through probate. De Bode has rejected those allegations as meritless.

At the time of Nathan Allman’s death, court filings described him as Ondo’s controlling shareholder and sole director, with another board seat vacant. Kathleen was appointed personal representative of the estate in Hawaii on June 26 and later used shareholder consents to appoint directors and attempt to remove De Bode, according to reporting on the complaint.

The estate has challenged a compensation arrangement that it says was prepared for De Bode following Allman’s death. Court-related reporting places the disputed package at roughly $11 million, including salary, a signing payment, restricted token units and equity awards. The amounts remain allegations in the litigation and have not been established as wrongdoing by a final court ruling.

De Bode remains Ondo’s public-facing leader. The company’s current leadership page lists him as “Acting CEO and President,” while Allman is listed as founder.

Estate dispute has expanded into Hawaii

A separate proceeding has developed around Kathleen Allman’s control of her share of the estate. Allman’s half-sister, Dr. Lani Clinton, and Ondo investor David Chen petitioned a Hawaii court for a limited conservatorship covering that interest.

The petition contains allegations about Kathleen’s ability to manage financial affairs, which her lawyers have denied. Kathleen has argued that the filing is connected to the fight over Ondo and has rejected its allegations as baseless. No final ruling establishing the contested claims was identified in the latest records reviewed.

The estate holds more than corporate voting rights. Court-related reports describe it as containing a large allocation of ONDO tokens, including tokens already unlocked and others scheduled to unlock during the next three years. The exact size of the estate’s controlling equity position is redacted from public versions of the corporate filings.

No public filing reviewed establishes that Kathleen, De Bode, the Ondo board or the estate formally retained an investment bank to sell the company. CoinDesk said it could not identify who initiated the reported outreach or determine a proposed sale price. Ondo has not disclosed a valuation in its publicly announced equity rounds.

Ondo operations continue while the case remains active

Ondo’s public product activity has continued during the court fight. On September 21, the company announced a new institutional route allowing approved firms to convert underlying shares directly into Ondo Stocks through Alpaca’s Instant Tokenization Network. The conversion service is live on Ethereum and BNB Chain.

As crypto.news reported in its coverage of Ondo’s new institutional share-conversion route, institutions need active Ondo and Alpaca accounts and approval before using the service. RWA.xyz data cited in that report tracked $3.63 billion in Ondo distributed assets across 441 products as of September 22.

The company has continued expanding tokenized equities during 2026. In related coverage, crypto.news reported that Ondo brought tokenized U.S. stocks to Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM, while Ondo Global Markets had reached nearly $18 billion in cumulative trading volume at that point.

Ondo had been pursuing acquisitions before the report that somebody tried to sell the company. Crypto.news reported in July that Ondo was exploring an acquisition worth up to $500 million in wealth technology or adjacent financial businesses. No formal adviser or specific acquisition target had been disclosed at the time.

Ondo’s official funding history shows a $20 million Series A in 2022 led by Founders Fund and Pantera Capital, with Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, GoldenTree, Wintermute, Flow Traders and others participating. The company had previously raised $4 million in its 2021 equity round.

Most recently, Ondo’s September 21 institutional conversion launch said approved firms can transfer existing shares from an Alpaca account into Ondo’s Alpaca account before corresponding Ondo Stocks tokens are issued onchain. Redemptions reverse the process, returning underlying shares to the institution’s Alpaca account.

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