Galaxy: What are traditional financial companies building on Ethereum?

By Christine Kim, Galaxy

Compiled by: Baishui, Golden Finance

Overview

There are over 50 non-crypto companies which have constructed services and products on Ethereum or Ethereum L2. These companies embody vogue manufacturers equivalent to Louis Vuitton and Adidas, in addition to financial establishments equivalent to Deutsche Financial institution and Paypal. These services and products notably don’t embody these associated to normal market infrastructure equivalent to cryptocurrency buying and selling, custody, auditing, and compliance. As an alternative, they are associated to crypto-specific infrastructure and use instances equivalent to NFTs, RWAs, Web3 developer instruments, and L2s. Of the 20 financial establishments which have constructed crypto-specific infrastructure and purposes, 10 are banks, most of which situation RWAs on Ethereum. This report goals to spotlight the early and main use instances of Ethereum utilized by traditional companies and establishments.

Preface

For the aim of this report, the primary sectors of the crypto {industry} may be divided into three classes:

Common Infrastructure – Companies that present cryptocurrency and blockchain-related services and products that are not distinctive or unique to the crypto {industry}, equivalent to normal market infrastructure (i.e. exchanges, market makers, asset administration) and normal enterprise assist (i.e. banking, accounting, consulting, compliance).

Crypto-specific infrastructure – Companies that present crypto-unique and proprietary services and products. For instance, this consists of companies concerned in mining, staking, and building on-chain oracles, which are accountable for infrastructure that’s solely helpful within the crypto and blockchain context.

Crypto use instances and purposes – Companies that are building shopper purposes that run in complete or partially on the blockchain. For instance, a decentralized alternate routinely executes cryptocurrency trades on the blockchain with out relying on a third-party middleman.

Relatively than increasing their current suite of purposes and providers to assist cryptocurrencies, traditional companies are taking the following step by innovating new services and products that may solely be powered by blockchain. Furthermore, many of those companies (a minimum of 55 of them) are innovating on public blockchains equivalent to Ethereum and Ethereum L2, equivalent to Polygon, Arbitrum, and Base.

Beneath is a market map of 55 non-crypto native companies which have or are building crypto-specific infrastructure and purposes on Ethereum and Ethereum L2.

Of those 55 companies, a minimum of 23 have issued NFTs on Ethereum or Ethereum L2.

Whereas most companies are building instantly on Ethereum, a minimum of 17 have or are making an attempt to construct throughout a number of general-purpose blockchains and Layer-2 Rollups.

RWA on Ethereum

Some of the frequent sorts of non-crypto companies within the Ethereum ecosystem is financial establishments, equivalent to banks, asset managers, cost processors, buying and selling platforms, and accounting corporations. Of the 20 financial establishments recognized as having constructed crypto-specific infrastructure and purposes, 13 are issuing RWAs on Ethereum and Ethereum L2. Varieties of RWAs issued on-chain embody cash market funds (such because the Franklin OnChain U.S. Authorities Cash Fund) and authorities bonds issued by the European Funding Financial institution, amongst others.

Ethereum is the highest blockchain for issuing tokenized belongings, with a complete RWA worth of just about ten occasions that of the following hottest RWA blockchain, Stellar. ZKsync, a Layer-2 rollup constructed on Ethereum, has a better quantity and complete worth of RWA issued on its chain than Stellar. Six of the highest 10 protocols issuing RWAs are Ethereum or Ethereum L2.

As of February 11, 2025, the third-largest tokenized fund throughout all blockchains is BlackRock’s U.S. Greenback Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). Launched in March 2024, BUIDL affords buyers U.S. greenback returns with the advantages of on the spot clear settlement and interoperability between traditional and decentralized financial markets. Robert Mitchnick, head of digital belongings at BlackRock, mentioned in March: “Via tokenization, we are taking traditional financial funding publicity and wrapping it in a crypto-native package deal.”

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset administration firm, partnered with tokenization platform Securitize and US financial providers firm Financial institution of New York Mellon to launch BUIDL on Ethereum for the primary time. Since March final 12 months, BlackRock has expanded the fund to 5 further protocols past Ethereum, three of which are Ethereum L2.

The worth of RWAs issued on Ethereum alone has tripled up to now 12 months. Based on rwa.xyz, over 160 RWAs have been issued on Ethereum and are held in 60,000 distinctive energetic pockets addresses. These numbers don’t embody stablecoins.

Though smaller in quantity, a subset of financial establishments devoted to RWAs and tokenization are additionally growing their very own stablecoins. Fee processor PayPal first launched its personal dollar-pegged stablecoin PYUSD on Ethereum in August 2023. PayPal has since expanded the distribution of PYUSD to Solana. Buying and selling platform Robinhood, in partnership with many different crypto-native establishments equivalent to Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei, Anchorage, Bullish, and Paxos, additionally launched its personal dollar-pegged stablecoin USDG on Ethereum in November 2024.

The whole circulating provide of stablecoins on Ethereum has elevated by 70% over the previous 12 months. These stablecoins differ in collateral combine and design kind, however the overwhelming majority are USD-pegged devices that maintain high-quality liquid belongings (HQLA) as collateral. As of February 11, 2025, Ethereum accounts for greater than 50% of the entire stablecoin market.

Information from Galaxy Analysis exhibits that by 2025, the entire provide of stablecoins will double to greater than $400 billion. This 12 months, a catalyst for the accelerated launch of recent stablecoins backed by traditional financial companions is Stripe’s acquisition of stablecoin cost platform Bridge for $1 billion in 2024. Relating to the acquisition, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison mentioned: “Stablecoins are the room temperature superconductors of financial providers. Because of stablecoins, international companies will profit from vital enhancements in velocity, protection, and price within the coming years.”

In america, one other catalyst for the adoption of RWAs and stablecoins is the regulatory atmosphere. U.S. Securities and Change Fee (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce issued a press release on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, outlining particular priorities and matters associated to the digital asset {industry} that the Fee could deal with, and the ninth merchandise on her checklist emphasised the modernization of traditional finance via tokenization. “The working group additionally plans to review the intersection of cryptocurrencies with clearing company and switch agent guidelines. “We are going to proceed to work with market contributors who are serious about tokenizing securities or in any other case utilizing blockchain know-how to modernize traditional financial markets,” the assertion reads.

RWAs and stablecoins are crypto-native use instances that are quickly discovering product-market slot in traditional financial establishments. As probably the most decentralized general-purpose blockchain with the broadest attain of crypto-native customers and the longest community uptime, Ethereum is the gateway many establishments use to incubate and launch financial-focused crypto providers and merchandise.

Scalable blockchain infrastructure

Whereas Ethereum is a gateway for a lot of financial establishments and non-crypto companies to leverage cryptocurrency and blockchain know-how, it isn’t a protocol that may scale with new use instances for blockchain. In comparison with blockchains like Solana, Ethereum has poor efficiency, gradual block occasions, and excessive transaction charges. Relatively than sacrificing the community’s resilience and safety (a byproduct of the community’s decentralization) for velocity, Ethereum protocol builders are dedicated to creating Ethereum a hub for Layer 2 rollups. Rollups are blockchain infrastructure that may inherit Ethereum’s safety and scale to thousands and thousands of recent customers.

Not solely are non-crypto companies advancing crypto use instances on Ethereum, equivalent to tokenization, however they are additionally investing within the infrastructure wanted to assist these use instances for a wider viewers than crypto-native customers. Germany’s largest financial institution, Deutsche Financial institution, is working with Matter Labs, the workforce that constructed the ZKSync rollup, to develop new rollups on Ethereum. Codenamed Mission DAMA 2, the Rollup is a part of a broader initiative led by the Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS) and 24 different financial establishments around the globe to discover the use instances of public blockchains in international finance.

The primary motivation for Deutsche Financial institution’s L2 is to create a blockchain infrastructure that’s scalable, auditable, clear, and interoperable with regulated platforms and financial providers. “Establishments trying to construct on-chain are turning to ZKSync for the power to construct in Web3 with out compromise. ZKSync supplies establishments with a customizable structure to construct custom-made options that obtain privateness, scalability, and interoperability with different personal and public blockchains,” mentioned Alex Gluchowski, co-inventor of ZKSync, on the motivation for Deutsche Financial institution’s L2.

Financial establishments equivalent to Deutsche Financial institution are growing scalable blockchain infrastructure that can also be customizable and compliant with regional rules on Ethereum. Nevertheless, the attraction of scalable and customizable blockchain infrastructure just isn’t restricted to financial use instances.

Japanese conglomerate Sony just lately launched its personal rollup on Ethereum utilizing the OP know-how stack. Their motivation for creating and working their very own normal rollup is to assist a wider ecosystem of gaming, financial, and leisure purposes. Relating to Sony’s L2 Soneium, Jun Watanabe, Chairman of Sony Blockchain Options Lab, mentioned: “I imagine that growing complete blockchain-based Web3 options is essential to the Sony Group, which has a variety of companies below the motto ‘to make the world emotional via the ability of creativity and know-how.’”

Since Soneium’s launch, the protocol has confronted backlash over Sony’s oversight of on-chain exercise, notably the launch of memecoin, which resulted in restrictions on token transfers and blacklisted addresses. Whereas the incident has raised questions concerning the stage of management that companies ought to have over the rollups they construct on permissionless infrastructure like Ethereum, it has additionally highlighted the dedication of one of many world’s largest conglomerates to discovering solutions to those questions. Sony, via the launch of Soneium, is investing in new digital experiences and purposes on Ethereum, and by launching a rollup on Ethereum, it speaks volumes concerning the potential worth of the Ethereum blockspace and the scalable blockchain infrastructure constructed on it.

Gaming on Ethereum L2

NFTs are the primary use case for traditional companies, primarily luxurious vogue manufacturers equivalent to Louis Vuitton and Coach, and luxurious automotive producers equivalent to Porsche and Lamborghini. Many of the NFTs issued by these companies had been minted between 2021 and 2023, on the peak of the NFT craze. Given the decline in NFT reserve costs over the previous few years, many companies are not actively issuing NFTs on Ethereum and Ethereum L2 in 2025.

The few companies nonetheless actively issuing NFTs on Ethereum in 2025 are doing so within the context of recreation improvement, and nearly totally on Ethereum L2, not Ethereum itself.

In July 2024, online game large Atari deployed two traditional arcade video games, “Asteroids” and “Breakout,” on Ethereum’s optimistic rollup Base, operated by Coinbase. By the tip of August 2024, players might earn rewards, mint unique Atari NFTs, and redeem bodily items on Base. A number of months after Atari’s foray into on-chain gaming, in October 2024, Lamborghini introduced a partnership with Web3 gaming firm Animoca Manufacturers to launch a digital collectibles platform referred to as FastForWorld.

FastForWorld allows players to purchase, promote and drive Lamborghini autos throughout a variety of video games developed by Animoca Manufacturers, together with Torque Drift 2, REVV Racing, Motorverse Hub and FastForWorld’s proprietary experiences. The press launch describes the partnership as “the primary time Lamborghini has made its iconic autos interoperable in-game on the blockchain.”

It was later revealed that FastForWorld’s in-game belongings could be minted on Base. The primary model of the platform launched on November 7, 2024 and continues to be below energetic improvement, with further expansions to the FastForWorld platform anticipated to be introduced in 2025.

Not too long ago, on January 7, 2025, Lotte Group, one of many high 5 Korean enterprise teams, introduced a deeper partnership with the Arbitrum Basis and Offchain Labs to construct Lotte’s metaverse gaming platform “Caliverse” on the Ethereum mixture Arbitrum. The already launched Caliverse permits customers to buy, attend digital concert events and play video games on its platform. “Along with Arbitrum, probably the most trusted blockchain, we are excited to take step one within the blockchain world with Lotte Caliverse. We are going to leverage Lotte’s profitable historical past within the retail {industry} to offer glorious services and products to greater than 40 million folks,” mentioned Kima Kim, CEO of Caliverse, when speaking concerning the cooperation with Arbitrum. In the course of the 2025 Client Electronics Present (CES) in Las Vegas, america, the Caliverse workforce introduced plans to launch digital actuality and 3D film options on its platform within the first half of 2025.

Most notably, non-crypto native companies equivalent to Atari, Lamborghini, and Rakuten’s Caliverse are persevering with to speculate and develop NFTs within the context of bigger on-chain gaming purposes. Blockchain-based video games can require frequent on-chain transactions, which may additionally result in costly charges and community congestion. Because of this, these companies are building their video games on Ethereum L2 to make the most of the scaling advantages of Ethereum’s rollup-centric structure.

“Arbitrum’s blockchain is the best residence for Caliverse because of industry-leading 250 millisecond block occasions, enabling seamless digital worlds and gaming use instances,” mentioned Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs.

in conclusion

NFTs and RWAs are the main use instances for Ethereum amongst non-crypto native companies and establishments. Among the many companies issuing NFTs within the Ethereum ecosystem, probably the most energetic in 2025 had been issuing NFTs in on-chain gaming purposes constructed on Ethereum L2. This highlights how the scalability positive aspects introduced by L2 may help assist crypto-native use instances that require frequent on-chain interactions, equivalent to video games between main retail manufacturers and companies. Ethereum’s focus on scaling its infrastructure via Rollups additionally supplies a possibility for early adopters of the know-how in traditional finance and different {industry} sectors to paved the way in non-speculative use instances for crypto by creating customizable and compliant infrastructure for these use instances. Lastly, Ethereum stays the blockchain of selection for traditional financial companies to situation RWAs and stablecoins. It’s anticipated that key partnerships and acquisitions established in 2024 will drive new progress within the adoption of stablecoins in 2025.