The Other Blockchain

Ethereum, long overshadowed by bitcoin, is emerging as the backbone of tokenised finance. With Nasdaq seeking to put $63-trillion of assets on blockchain, Ethereum’s ecosystem – already hosting most stablecoins, tokenised gold and treasuries – is positioned to become the next giant.

Earlier this month, a news item flashed across my iPhone. The Nasdaq stock exchange had applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for permission to tokenise all the stocks listed on its exchange. Tokenisation of real-world assets has been around for years, with most commentators saying “yes, it’s going to be big one day”, before returning their attention to bitcoin and stablecoins, the two stories hogging headlines for the past 18 months.

Let’s put this in perspective. Nasdaq-listed assets are cumulatively worth $63-trillion. The entire crypto market, by contrast, is worth $4-trillion. Tokenisation is likely to be orders of magnitude larger than the rest of the crypto market combined.

Those who follow the sector know the SEC has become crypto-sympathetic (or at least less crypto-allergic) since US President Donald Trump appointed a slew of true believers to replace Gary Gensler and his regulatory team. One can only assume the SEC will eventually give Nasdaq approval. And then the walls will come down. Everyone will follow – US and global exchanges alike: stock, futures, commodities, options.

Why? Because tokenised exchange products on a blockchain are simply a better mousetrap than the ancien régime of middlemen, paperwork, arcane regulations and process sludge that still dominates traditional finance. No-one will be able to resist its charms for long.

This brings us to the other blockchain: Ethereum.

Supercharging Ethereum

Ethereum has long struggled to get airtime in the general financial press, except from specialists. It has been a side story, often poorly understood. But Nasdaq’s approval of tokenisation will supercharge Ethereum and its native token, ETH.

Ethereum was conceived in 2014 by Vitalik Buterin – then a teenager – in reaction to bitcoin’s narrow architecture, which was designed solely as a harness for its cryptocurrency. The bitcoin blockchain does little else, by design and intent.

Buterin’s big idea was that a blockchain could be a general-purpose computer, able to do whatever people wanted. He designed a programming language, put it on top of the blockchain and released it to the world. Developers quickly began using Ethereum to code applications ranging from non-fungible tokens to prediction markets, decentralised exchanges and secure file systems – and now the rising giant of tokens representing ownership of real-world assets.

As is often the case, the story is more complicated. Several competitors to Ethereum emerged to enable blockchain apps. But here lies Ethereum’s genius. It released its most crucial development environment, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), free to the world. Competitors could either build tools from scratch or adopt the EVM ecosystem, bristling with hardened and useful components. Most chose the latter – the fastest route to market.

Ethereum then told aspiring developers: feel free to build your own apps on your own blockchains, but we will secure your transactions cheaply. This spared them the risky task of creating security systems, and most accepted the offer.

The result is that almost every programmable blockchain in the world is beholden to Ethereum in some way. Adoption of its development tools and security apparatus has not only strengthened rivals’ offerings but also reinforced Ethereum’s dominance.

This has brought Ethereum to where it stands today. It is the second-largest blockchain by value (about $500bn). It hosts more applications than any other blockchain. It has by far the biggest developer ecosystem.

It offers the largest toolset for developers, created both by Ethereum and its competitors, which has acted as a flywheel for the wider ecosystem. It is the most recognisable brand behind bitcoin, with a deep and mature roadmap into the future.

It is the OG of programmable public blockchains – perhaps not always the cheapest or the fastest, but the wise elder, the last common ancestor of application-centric blockchains.

The numbers tell the story. Ethereum and other EVM ecosystems host 95% of stablecoins, 78% of tokenised gold, 87% of tokenised treasuries and 79% of the still-nascent real-world asset market. The biggest booster – stocks, commodities and derivatives – has yet to begin.

Meanwhile, ETH is on fire. Its value has surged from $1,067 in June 2022 to about $4,500 at the time of writing, with many analysts now whispering about $10,000.

In 2024, the SEC supercharged bitcoin by approving the first bitcoin ETF, most notably led by BlackRock.

It looks like it is now Ethereum’s time to step into the spotlight.

Steven Boykey Sidley is a professor of practice at JBS, University of Johannesburg, and a partner at Bridge Capital.

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2. Select "CRYP"

3. Under IPOs, New Listings and Expressions of Interest you will find the latest listed crypto

4. Browse the latest drops, token details, and what’s tradable

5. Add to your watchlist or portfolio

By regularly checking the New Listings and Themes section, you stay ahead of what’s trending.

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