The following wave of institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies is rising as established fintech companies start constructing their very own blockchains.
Monetary providers app Robinhood not too long ago introduced that it’s constructing its own layer-2 blockchain to support tokenized stocks and real-world belongings, whereas Stripe adopted with plans for Tempo, a payments-focused chain built with Paradigm.
“That’s going to be the start of many others to come back,” Annabelle Huang, co-founder of Altius Labs, instructed Cointelegraph in an interview. “The fintechs in Asia, Latin America and different rising markets which have appeared into this for a few years now are additionally on the point of make extra strikes.”
Huang has lived via the levels of crypto’s gradual courtship with Wall Avenue. After beginning her profession buying and selling international change and charges in New York, she joined Amber Group in Hong Kong as its managing associate and helped scale it into certainly one of Asia’s largest crypto liquidity suppliers throughout the decentralized finance (DeFi) growth.
The brand new wave of fintech-led blockchains faces the identical efficiency points which have dogged crypto since its inception. Wall Avenue companies commerce in microseconds, whereas blockchains nonetheless course of transactions in seconds or, at greatest, milliseconds. Huang known as this the trade’s “execution bottleneck” and argued it should be cleared earlier than fintech-built chains can carry the burden of institutional capital.
Execution bottleneck in crypto’s path to institutional adoption
Since leaving Amber Group, Huang has turned her focus to fixing the execution bottleneck. With Altius Labs, she is constructing a modular execution layer designed to plug immediately into present blockchains, boosting throughput with out forcing initiatives to rebuild their whole stack.
“Our purpose is to carry efficiency to any blockchain in a plug-and-play manner,” Huang stated. “That manner, a series can improve its block execution time and throughput with out having to revamp its whole structure.”
She described the strategy as bringing modularity deeper into the execution layer of the blockchain stack, which is a departure from the same old mannequin of spinning up sidechains or new layer 2s. By specializing in the execution engine itself, Huang argues that Web3 can shut the hole with Web2-level efficiency whereas preserving the distributed nature of blockchains.
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On June 27, 2025, Wall Avenue confirmed simply how huge the efficiency hole is between trendy blockchains and conventional finance infrastructure. Nasdaq’s closing public sale for the annual Russell index reconstitution — an occasion when index funds reshuffle their holdings — matched 2.5 billion shares in simply 0.871 seconds. The change’s INET system is marketed to deal with greater than 1 million order messages per second with sub-40-microsecond latency.
In contrast, blockchains nonetheless function at a fraction of that velocity. Ethereum processes about 15 transactions per second with block instances of round 12 seconds. Solana — one of many quickest main networks — has a roughly 400-millisecond block time and handles a number of thousand transactions per second in observe. Even at their greatest, these figures don’t meet the benchmarks establishments count on earlier than shifting significant buying and selling exercise onchain.
Blockchains have improved scaling, with Ethereum L2s offloading visitors to rollups. Solana’s next-generation validator consumer, Firedancer, goals to slender the hole additional.
Huang claimed that the trade mustn’t count on extra “Ethereum killers” or general-purpose blockchains to emerge, including that customers want to consolidate round just a few dominant platforms quite than scatter across dozens of new chains.
“However inside Ethereum, there was nonetheless the scalability concern, and that’s why folks began spinning up new block areas by establishing sidechains. After which L2s launched further fragmentation and tough UI/UX due to it,” she stated.
Institutional adoption in ETFs and treasuries
Although the following wave of institutional adoption requires enhancements on present blockchain networks, Wall Avenue hasn’t waited for these technical upgrades earlier than piling into the digital gold rush. For a lot of giant traders, publicity has come not directly via exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or company treasuries. Bitcoin (BTC) funds have change into straightforward entry factors, whereas firms like Technique (previously MicroStrategy) have turned themselves into leveraged proxies for the asset.
The blueprint hasn’t labored for everybody. All through 2025, struggling companies latched onto the “Bitcoin treasury” narrative as a last-ditch approach to spark investor enthusiasm. Some briefly noticed their inventory costs surge, solely to retrace quickly after. The weak funds of a few of these firms have additionally raised issues about what may occur in the event that they falter during unfavorable market conditions.
Huang stated these pivots could be dangerous, particularly for retail traders, as a result of not all company Bitcoin methods are structured the same way. She in contrast the inventory spikes to token launches — an preliminary bid-up, adopted by a return to “honest worth.” Nonetheless, she argued that demand for proxies like ETFs and treasury methods will live on.
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“Earlier than MicroStrategy, there was Grayscale. Everybody assumed that after a Bitcoin ETF was authorized, the Grayscale premium would disappear, and so would the MicroStrategy commerce. However should you look nearer, traders nonetheless want MicroStrategy over an ETF for just a few causes,” Huang stated.
“First, as a result of Michael Saylor has been accumulating for an extended interval, their common value foundation is decrease. Second, they’ve accomplished a number of rounds of fundraising via convertible bonds, which introduces leverage. That makes MicroStrategy successfully a barely levered play on Bitcoin at a decrease value foundation,” she added.
Huang additionally stated that whereas ETF choices exist for Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), traders who need altcoin publicity typically flip to debt methods as an alternative.
Fintech chains are shaping the following stage of institutional adoption
Fintechs like Robinhood and Stripe have gotten the following stage of institutional blockchain dedication. Fairly than including crypto tickers to buying and selling apps, they’re now investing in their very own blockchains — a step towards embedding digital belongings into their core infrastructure.
The infrastructure round them is shifting as nicely. Over-the-counter desks, as soon as discreet on-ramps for hedge funds to purchase Bitcoin off-exchange, are actually positioning themselves as regulated liquidity suppliers.
In observe, meaning providing the compliance, settlement and reporting requirements that institutional purchasers count on, bringing crypto one step nearer to Wall Avenue norms.
“What we’re seeing now — and I count on much more going ahead — is a pattern of establishments adopting stablecoins and even constructing their very own blockchains for particular use instances,” Huang stated.
These are conversations she was having with institutional gamers 4 years in the past at Amber Group. Now, “they’re lastly able to act.”
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