Will Ethereum remain institutions' top choice?
jonahrobrts breaks down the blockchain competition for TradFi's attention 🤼♂️
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Disruption. Digitization. Financial inclusion. Future-proofing.
What do all of these oft-repeated buzzwords have in common? They’ve all been used by crypto-pilled associates at TradFi firms to pitch their bosses on the exciting upside of blockchain tech. This year, it seems, the executives are listening.
Institutions jumped into crypto more headlong than ever in 2024. Their moves are starting to bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi. However, this article isn’t focused on why firms are building onchain. Instead, we are focusing on where these funds are choosing to build.
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What’s Happening on Ethereum?
Ethereum is the world’s largest smart-contract blockchain network. It has secured over $90 billion in RWAs, including stablecoins. 2024 has been a big year for the adoption of non-stablecoin RWAs on Ethereum as well, with the network growing its onchain U.S. treasuries, bonds, and cash equivalents from $800 million to over $1 .5 billion and overall non-stablecoin RWA value to $2 .9 billion.
Some of the major players building on Ethereum this year include
Visa, BlackRock and FTI_US
Earlier this month, Visa announced that they are building the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP) on Ethereum. This is the company’s biggest step toward crypto adoption thus far. VTAP enables Visa to issue and manage fiat-backed tokens on Ethereum. It is intended to be a sandbox for participating financial institutional partners to create and experiment with fiat-backed tokens. They expect to begin piloting the platform with Spanish multinational bank BBVA in 2025. While the VTAP program is certainly an experiment, it gives credit to the thesis that TradFi will migrate its operations onto Ethereum over the coming decades.
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Yet, the success of Ethereum’s competitors highlights a critical point: institutions are no longer bound to a single network. While Ethereum is foundational, blockchains like Solana and Stellar provide alternatives that are increasingly hard to ignore. However, they also present novel interoperability concerns.
Interoperability is central to the future of institutional blockchain adoption. As Visa states in their VTAP press release announcement, the largest benefits of building onchain include easy integration, programmability, and interoperability. Institutions that venture onto non-EVM chains like Solana or Stellar may face challenges in asset liquidity and protocol compatibility. This can lead to reliance on third-party services to bridge assets between chains, which introduces complexity and security risks. Ethereum’s widespread use means that staying within the EVM ecosystem—whether through Ethereum or Layer 2 solutions—remains the simplest and most secure option for institutions.
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However, for Ethereum to maintain its lead in the race toward institutional adoption, it must continue to balance world-class security and stability with the performance and scalability that competing chains continue to push. The race to capture the attention of institutional finance will be won by the network that can not only meet today’s demands but also anticipate the needs of tomorrow. Ethereum is well-positioned for now, but staying on top will require constant evolution.
jonahrobrts breaks down the blockchain competition for TradFi's attention 🤼♂️
========================================
Disruption. Digitization. Financial inclusion. Future-proofing.
What do all of these oft-repeated buzzwords have in common? They’ve all been used by crypto-pilled associates at TradFi firms to pitch their bosses on the exciting upside of blockchain tech. This year, it seems, the executives are listening.
Institutions jumped into crypto more headlong than ever in 2024. Their moves are starting to bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi. However, this article isn’t focused on why firms are building onchain. Instead, we are focusing on where these funds are choosing to build.
----------------------------
What’s Happening on Ethereum?
Ethereum is the world’s largest smart-contract blockchain network. It has secured over $90 billion in RWAs, including stablecoins. 2024 has been a big year for the adoption of non-stablecoin RWAs on Ethereum as well, with the network growing its onchain U.S. treasuries, bonds, and cash equivalents from $800 million to over $1 .5 billion and overall non-stablecoin RWA value to $2 .9 billion.
Some of the major players building on Ethereum this year include
Visa, BlackRock and FTI_US
Earlier this month, Visa announced that they are building the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP) on Ethereum. This is the company’s biggest step toward crypto adoption thus far. VTAP enables Visa to issue and manage fiat-backed tokens on Ethereum. It is intended to be a sandbox for participating financial institutional partners to create and experiment with fiat-backed tokens. They expect to begin piloting the platform with Spanish multinational bank BBVA in 2025. While the VTAP program is certainly an experiment, it gives credit to the thesis that TradFi will migrate its operations onto Ethereum over the coming decades.
----------------------------
Yet, the success of Ethereum’s competitors highlights a critical point: institutions are no longer bound to a single network. While Ethereum is foundational, blockchains like Solana and Stellar provide alternatives that are increasingly hard to ignore. However, they also present novel interoperability concerns.
Interoperability is central to the future of institutional blockchain adoption. As Visa states in their VTAP press release announcement, the largest benefits of building onchain include easy integration, programmability, and interoperability. Institutions that venture onto non-EVM chains like Solana or Stellar may face challenges in asset liquidity and protocol compatibility. This can lead to reliance on third-party services to bridge assets between chains, which introduces complexity and security risks. Ethereum’s widespread use means that staying within the EVM ecosystem—whether through Ethereum or Layer 2 solutions—remains the simplest and most secure option for institutions.
----------------------------
However, for Ethereum to maintain its lead in the race toward institutional adoption, it must continue to balance world-class security and stability with the performance and scalability that competing chains continue to push. The race to capture the attention of institutional finance will be won by the network that can not only meet today’s demands but also anticipate the needs of tomorrow. Ethereum is well-positioned for now, but staying on top will require constant evolution.
2 months ago
