Ethereum’s institutional adoption is moving beyond the experimental phase and into real-world deployment, CoinDesk reported on June 13, citing Etherealize founder Vivek Raman (비벡 라만).

Etherealize specialises in helping Wall Street financial firms use Ethereum.

Raman said large financial institutions are beginning to treat public blockchains not as an emerging technology but as real operating infrastructure. He said it was at the proof-of-concept level even 18 months ago, but perceptions have shifted to seeing public blockchains as something that must be used like the internet.

On Wall Street, stablecoins have established themselves as the first institutional use case, he said, and discussions are also active on tokenised stocks, bonds, real estate and investment funds. Raman said the network effects Ethereum has built in stablecoins, liquidity and institutional distribution continue to draw in traditional financial firms.

Rising institutional interest has not yet been reflected in Ethereum’s price. Raman cited timing as the reason. He said institutional sales cycles are particularly long, adding that the plumbing work is done but the shift of assets on-chain has not yet been fully seen.

He said that as more tokenised assets move on-chain, the market will reassess ETH’s role as an asset that protects the network.

Raman also pushed back against criticism surrounding the Ethereum Foundation. He said the foundation stepping back from a central coordinator role is a strength, not a flaw. He said no single entity should control infrastructure underpinning the financial system, and that the foundation should protect core values such as security, censorship resistance, privacy and open standards, while focusing on long-term tasks such as zero-knowledge technology and quantum resistance.