Institutional finance is treating public blockchains as production infrastructure, not emerging tech
Wall Street financial institutions are transitioning from blockchain pilots to production deployment of tokenized assets on Ethereum, according to Vivek Raman, cofounder of Etherealize, a company focused on bringing Ethereum to institutional finance.
The shift marks a fundamental change in how large financial players view public blockchains. “A year and a half ago it was proof-of-concept, dip your toe in. Now it’s: we need to jump in head first and use public chains just like we all use the internet,” Raman said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Ethereum’s institutional adoption is accelerating across multiple asset classes. Institutions are exploring tokenized stocks, bonds, funds, and real estate on the network. Raman attributed this expansion to Ethereum’s established dominance in stablecoins and liquidity, which has created a network effect pulling traditional financial players toward the platform.
“It’s because Ethereum started as a hub for liquidity that now consumers are saying: let’s bring other assets on. Those assets range from stocks to bonds to fixed income to real estate,” Raman explained.
Stablecoins were the industry’s first institutional use case on Ethereum, establishing the foundation for broader asset tokenization. The network’s infrastructure for institutional deployments is largely in place, though capital migration remains constrained by long institutional sales cycles.
“The sales cycles for institutions are especially long. The piping is all in place. We just haven’t seen all the assets come onchain yet,” Raman said.
ETH price action has not yet reflected growing institutional interest, a lag Raman attributes to the time required for institutional capital to move onchain following infrastructure buildout. He characterizes Ethereum as in a transitional phase where technical groundwork is complete but adoption scale has not yet materialized at the asset level.
Foundation Governance and Long-Term Priorities
The Ethereum Foundation has faced scrutiny over its evolving role as the network matures. Raman argues the foundation’s willingness to step back from control is appropriate, given that the substrate for the global financial system cannot be controlled by any single party.
“The substrate for the financial system can’t have a party controlling it. The network is universal. The pieces are all there now. Let’s hand it off,” Raman said.
Instead, Raman contends the foundation should focus on maintaining core values including security, censorship resistance, privacy, and open standards. He also identifies zero-knowledge technology and quantum resistance as long-term priorities for the network.
Raman frames Ethereum’s institutional moment as part of a broader financial transition. “When you look at the headlines in retrospect, it’ll be: the global financial system’s internet moment happened on Ethereum,” he said.
The highest measure of success for any blockchain, according to Raman, is sustainable utility. “The highest calling for any blockchain is to have users and sustainable assets and actual utility,” he noted.
