A corporate control fight has broken out at Ondo Finance, the real-world asset tokenization platform, after the estate of late founder Nathan Allman accused current CEO Ian De Bode of improperly seizing the company while probate proceedings left its controlling voting stake unresolved.
Allman, who died unexpectedly on May 25, 2026 at age 32, held the company's controlling shareholder stake, was its sole director, and served as CEO at the time of his death. Because that voting power passed into his estate, it could not be exercised until Allman's mother, Kathleen Allman, was formally appointed personal representative through Hawaii probate proceedings on June 26.
What the lawsuit alleges
According to the estate's complaint, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery under case number 2026-0978, De Bode — Ondo's longtime president — claimed he automatically became CEO under the company's bylaws before probate had concluded. The suit alleges he then elected himself the company's sole director through a voting agreement and began taking corporate actions on that authority, including hiring outside advisors, approving performance grants, and attempting to add another director to the board.
Once Kathleen Allman's authority over the estate's shares was confirmed, she convened a formal board meeting on July 24 where members voted to remove De Bode and install her as interim CEO — a move De Bode has not recognized.
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De Bode pushes back
Ms. Allman's claims are meritless, and that will come through clearly in court.
De Bode called the lawsuit "regretful" and said Ondo retains the backing of its key stakeholders, lead investors, and the Ondo Foundation. The company counts Coinbase, Wintermute, Tiger Global, and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund among its backers since its 2021 founding.
Market reaction
The governance dispute has weighed on ONDO, which fell roughly 9% over 48 hours as more than 10 million tokens moved onto exchanges — typically a signal of holders positioning to sell. Traders are watching the $0.30 level as near-term support, inside the $0.24-to-$0.30 range the token traded in earlier this year.
The episode underscores a governance risk that has drawn less scrutiny than smart-contract security across the RWA tokenization sector: many of these platforms, including Ondo, have scaled quickly while control remained concentrated in a single founder, leaving succession largely untested until now. How Delaware's Court of Chancery resolves the estate's claims could set an informal template for how similar disputes at founder-led crypto companies get handled going forward.
