How it Works
There are three major processes for USDY:
- Subscriptions, whereby which create new USDY tokens
- Redemptions, whereby an investor returns Tokens to Ondo to get their money back (plus accrued yield)
- Transfers, whereby an investor sells their Tokens in the secondary market or utilizes their Tokens within DeFi
I. Subscriptions
Step 1: Deposits
Once you complete onboarding, you can choose to deposit funds in three ways: (a) in USD via wire transfer, (b) in USDC via our web interface, which will direct you to send USDC to an address we control, or (c) in USDT via direct stablecoin transfer to an address we control. When you send a wire transfer, your subscription is considered ‘made' at the time we receive the wire. Let's call this your Closing Date. For legal and accounting reasons, however, when you send USDC or USDT, your Closing Date is considered to be when we convert it to USD and initiate the wire of the money to our primary bank account. (This typically happens within one Business Day).
Step 2: Cohort Assignment
For legal and regulatory reasons, each subscription is assigned a cohort, the purpose of which we'll describe in a minute. The time that your investment / loan is made (i.e. your Closing Date) determines which cohort your loan is part of. Each cohort runs from Wednesday to Tuesday. This closing date is also the date after which you begin earning interest. (For more on how interest rates are set, see this question)
Cohorts are important because – for legal and regulatory reasons – they determine when you can claim your Tokens. More on this below.
[*For those interested in the details, for accounting and operational purposes, we technically consider 8pm UTC to be the cutoff time each day so subscriptions and redemptions that happen after 8pm UTC Tuesday are treated ‘as if' it happened on Wednesday. For example, a subscription made at 8:00:00pm UTC on (Tuesday) June 20th would be treated as part of the (Wednesday) June 21st cohort, which would end at 7:59:59pm UTC on Tuesday, June 27th.]
Step 3: Certificate and USDYc Generation
Temporary Global Certificate Generation
Typically within three Business Days from when your subscription is made, you will receive a Temporary Global Certificate representing your rights to payment, instead of receiving USDY tokens. Why not just immediately provide you with Tokens? For legal and contractual reasons, the note that USDY represents has heightened transfer restrictions for at least 40 days (this period is called the “Restricted Period”). The USDY token itself, in contrast, can be transferred between qualifying non-US persons after this Restricted Period. Therefore, to ensure you (and we) remain in compliance, we first issue a Temporary Global Certificate that represents the USDY tokens you are eligible to receive at the end of the Restricted Period. The Temporary Global Certificate is literally a PDF certificate that records your deposit and redemptions, and that we provide to you and keep on file. When your USDY tokens are minted, we then update the Temporary Global Certificate accordingly. At that point, the USDY tokens themselves become the representation of your rights under the note that USDY represents and the Temporary Global Certificate is no longer relevant.
USDYc Generation
When your Temporary Global Certificate is issued, USDYc tokens are minted. The number of USDYc tokens, or “Cooking USDY,” that are minted upon the issuance of your Temporary Global Certificate is equivalent to the number of USDY tokens that will be minted after the conclusion of the Restricted Period. When the Restricted Period ends, and USDY tokens are minted, the associated USDYc tokens are burned.
USDYc serves as an onchain bookkeeping representation of the corresponding Temporary Global Certificate. Unlike Temporary Global Certificates, each of which are specific to the individual or entity who subscribed, USDYc tokens are not attributed onchain to specific subscribers. Instead, USDYc tokens are used solely as an accounting mechanism so that this off-chain data - the total number of USDY tokens not yet minted for subscriptions in the Restricted Period - can be tracked onchain. This allows onchain data aggregators to track USDY subscriptions that are still in the Restricted Period, so that they can accurately report data such as USDY’s TVL. USDYc tokens are merely a bookkeeping device of the issuer; the tokens are non-transferable and are held only by the issuer, not by subscribers.
Step 4: Token Minting & Claiming
Importantly — and here's where the cohort concept comes into play — the Restricted Period on your Certificate starts the day after your Certificate's cohort ends.
Continuing our previous example, the (Wednesday) June 21st cohort ends on (Tuesday) June 27th (i.e. a week later), so the first day of that Certificate's Restricted Period would be (Wednesday) June 28th. Forty days after June 27th — the end of the cohort — is Sunday, August 6th. One day later — Monday, August 7 — would then be your Token Eligibility Date, the first date on which your Tokens can be minted and claimed.
To ensure you remained informed about what is happening with your investment, you will receive notifications via email (and in your Ondo account) upon all of the following events:
- When your onboarding application has been approved
- When you are eligible to start depositing funds
- When your Temporary Global Certificate is generated
- When your Tokens have been minted and are ready to claim
- When we acknowledge a Temporary Global Certificate redemption request you've made via email to support@ondo.finance
- After we have fulfilled your redemption request
II. Redemptions
Step 1: Redemption Request
If you already have Tokens, you request a redemption via our web interface. If you have not received your Tokens but have already been issued a Temporary Global Certificate, you may request a redemption by emailing us at support@ondo.finance.
[Note that, for technical reasons, if you have Tokens represented by a Certificate(s) less than two Business Days away from the Token Eligibility Date, you will not be able to trigger a redemption of those Tokens by email. Instead you will have to wait until your Tokens are minted, claim them (or have us claim them for you), then request a redemption via the web app. For example, assume your Token Eligibility Date was Friday June 23 (which for our purposes starts at 8pm UTC Thursday June 22. ) Two Business Days earlier than Friday is Wednesday June 21st, which starts at 8pm UTC on Tuesday June 20, so any early redemption requests received after 7:59:59pm UTC will be ineligible to redeem early.]
The Cutoff Time for receiving redemption requests is the same as for Subscriptions.
Note that all redemptions are denominated in US Dollars and, to ensure compliance with US securities laws, must be made via wire transfer to bank accounts outside the US
Step 2: Redemption Fulfillment
Fulfillment of a redemption request typically takes place within two Business Days of receiving a valid redemption request. The fees you pay for a redemption is fulfilled depends on the amount of money you are redeeming:
- If you are redeeming less than $100,000, note that the funds you receive will be net (i.e. you will pay) any fees associated with the transfer. USDY is only redeemable in US Dollars, so please ensure that your bank account accepts US Dollars. Should your bank convert any wired US Dollars to another currency, you bear any currency exchange risk and exchange fees.
- If you are redeeming $100,000 or more, Any wire fees (but not any currency fees or exchange rate risk) will be covered by us.
In both cases, you will pay our standard redemption fees.
Note that redemptions for Temporary Global Certificates (i.e. prior to your token issuance) is only available for amounts greater than $100,000; for amounts less than this you will need to wait until your Tokens are minted.
When redeeming the via the web app, the redemption request is considered ‘received' at the time you submit it. Note that if you send an early redemption request via email, however, we may not ‘receive' the request for several days depending upon the backlog of support requests we receive.
III. Secondary Markets or Transfers
Because they are only minted after the Restricted Period ends, Tokens are transferable to anyone within eligible geographies at your discretion, including selling, utilizing within DeFi, and buying more Tokens from others.
Legal Notice
These pages are provided solely to facilitate your understanding of certain key features and terms of USDY and its issuer, and is qualified in all respects by the Tokenized Credit and Security Agreement, your Subscription Agreement, the Borrowing and Lending Memorandum, and the Limited Liability Company Agreement of Ondo USDY LLC.
For the purposes of these pages, the capitalized term “Token” shall refer to the transferrable USDY token.
Neither these pages, nor any related links or discussions, nor any portion hereof or thereof, constitutes any offer to sell, or any solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, including but not limited to USDY Tokens.
Neither these pages, nor any related links or discussions, nor any portion hereof of thereof, constitutes any representation, warranty or covenant on the part of Ondo Finance Inc., Ondo USDY LLC or any other person.
These pages and their links contain, and officers, agents or representatives of Ondo Finance Inc. or Ondo USDY LLC may from time to time make, "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on current beliefs, expectations and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of the control of Ondo Finance Inc., Ondo USDY LLC and their respective officers, agents and representatives. Actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements.
Acquiring USDY Tokens is speculative and involves substantial risks. There can be no assurances that a USDY Token holder will not incur losses, including total loss of their investment in USDY Tokens.
The USDY Tokens are not offered OR SOLD, and will not be offered OR SOLD, in the United States or to US persons. In addition, the USDY Tokens have not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Act”) or the securities laws of any other jurisdiction, and may not be offered, sold or otherwise transferred in the United States or to US persons unless the securities are registered under the Act, or an exemption from the registration requirements of the Act is available. Additional limitations on transfer also apply.