If Nathan Allman built the yield layer of the RWA sector, Carlos Domingo built the compliance layer. Those two things sound less exciting than the yield number and the TVL chart — but without the compliance infrastructure Securitize provides, neither Allman's Ondo nor anyone else's tokenized fund could reach the institutional capital that makes the sector real.
Domingo is the co-founder and CEO of Securitize, the largest tokenized securities platform in the United States by number of registered investors and assets under management. When BlackRock launched BUIDL — the tokenized fund that became the benchmark institutional RWA product — it did so on Securitize's infrastructure. That single fact is the clearest summary of Domingo's position in the sector.
The Path That Made Him Different
Domingo came to tokenized securities from an unusual angle for the space: enterprise software and telecommunications. He was a co-founder of SPiKE Networks and Digital Mobile Ventures before moving into the blockchain world, and he spent time at NTTDATA and Telefónica — large-scale enterprise environments where regulatory compliance, integration with existing financial systems, and institutional trust-building were the operating environment, not the obstacle.
That background shows in how Securitize was built. Most early blockchain projects treated regulatory compliance as a constraint to route around. Domingo treated it as the product. Securitize built its platform specifically to operate within securities law — registering as a transfer agent with the SEC, building compliant KYC/AML infrastructure, and designing its token standard (DS Protocol) to enforce transfer restrictions on-chain so that compliance isn't a manual checkpoint but a property of the token itself.
He co-founded Securitize in 2017 alongside Jamie Finn, at a point when the tokenized securities concept existed mostly on whitepapers. Building the regulatory infrastructure before institutional demand existed for it required either unusual foresight or unusual conviction. In retrospect, it looks like both.
What Securitize Built
Securitize operates across the full tokenized securities stack. On the issuance side, it handles the legal structuring, KYC/AML compliance, investor accreditation, and token creation for fund managers and issuers who want to bring assets on-chain. On the secondary side, Securitize Markets operates as a registered Alternative Trading System (ATS) — the first ATS specifically built for digital securities — providing a compliant secondary marketplace for tokenized assets.
The DS Protocol, Securitize's proprietary token standard, encodes compliance rules directly into the token. When an investor tries to transfer a security token, the token itself checks whether the recipient is an accredited investor, whether the transfer violates lock-up periods, and whether regulatory requirements are met — before the transaction executes. The compliance isn't checked by a human after the fact. It runs on-chain at the point of transfer.
The BlackRock BUIDL Moment
In March 2024, BlackRock launched BUIDL — the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund — on the Ethereum blockchain, using Securitize as its transfer agent and tokenization platform. The fund held short-term US Treasuries and cash, distributed yield daily to token holders, and settled on-chain. It became the largest tokenized money market fund within weeks of launch.
For Domingo, the BUIDL launch was the institutional validation that the compliance-first approach had been building toward for seven years. BlackRock didn't choose Securitize because it was the cheapest option or the fastest builder. It chose Securitize because it had the SEC registration, the track record, and the compliance infrastructure that a firm managing $10 trillion in assets requires from a counterparty.
The Ondo Finance connection runs through here too — OUSG, Ondo's tokenized Treasury fund, holds BUIDL as its primary reserve asset. The RWA sector's most visible protocols are, at the infrastructure level, built on top of each other in ways that make Securitize's position more foundational than its public profile might suggest.
Why the Compliance Layer Is the Moat
There is a straightforward competitive logic to Securitize's position that Domingo has been consistent about articulating: the hardest part of tokenized securities isn't the blockchain. It's the regulatory registration, the investor onboarding, the ATS licensing, and the legal relationships with custodians and fund administrators that make the whole thing work within the existing financial system.
Building those things took years and significant capital. They are not easily replicated. A competitor can write a smart contract faster than Securitize can. A competitor cannot obtain SEC registration as a transfer agent and build the institutional relationships that come with it faster than Securitize already has. The compliance infrastructure is the barrier to entry — and Domingo built it first.
As the RWA sector continues to grow, that infrastructure advantage compounds. Every major fund manager that tokenizes through Securitize adds to its track record. Every regulatory interaction adds to its institutional relationships. The sector's growth, in this sense, reinforces Securitize's position rather than threatening it.
What He's Building Toward
Domingo's stated vision for Securitize is to become the infrastructure layer for the entire tokenized securities market — the DTCC equivalent for on-chain assets. That's an ambitious target. The DTCC settles $114 trillion annually; Securitize is currently at $2 billion. The gap is enormous.
But the gap at the infrastructure layer is narrowing faster than the asset numbers suggest. The DTCC's own tokenization announcement — launch scheduled for July 2026 — explicitly includes Securitize in its working group alongside Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Nasdaq, and the NYSE. Being in that room, at that table, with those counterparties, is not where you end up if you built the wrong thing.
→ Related: Ondo Finance — How ONDO Became the Darling of the RWA Sector
→ BlackRock's tokenized fund expansion
→ DTCC July 2026: $114 Trillion Could Go On-Chain