Please like, comment or subscribe if you haven’t already.

The world’s largest asset manager just crossed the Rubicon. BlackRock is listing its Treasury-backed BUIDL token on UniswapX, making it tradeable through decentralized smart contracts rather than solely traditional intermediaries. The deal, facilitated by Securitize, initially targets qualified purchasers ($5M+ in assets) with a whitelist of institutional participants and market makers. BlackRock also purchased an undisclosed amount of UNI tokens.

Apollo Enters Strategic Partnership with Morpho

Apollo Global Management, which manages roughly $900 billion in assets, has entered a cooperation agreement with Ethereum-based DeFi lending protocol Morpho. Under the terms, Apollo or its affiliates may acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens over a 48-month period through open-market purchases, OTC transactions, and other contractual arrangements, subject to transfer and trading restrictions. The two parties will work together to support onchain lending markets on Morpho’s protocol. Galaxy Digital UK served as exclusive financial adviser to Morpho.

A $900B asset manager buying into DeFi lending infrastructure is a statement of intent about where institutional capital sees opportunity. Source.

Tomasz Stanczak announced he is stepping down from his co-Executive Director role at the Ethereum Foundation at the end of February 2026.

Bastian Aue, who is a long standing EFer and already a part of the management team, will take over the co-ED position alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang. In a reflective blog post, Tomasz highlighted the achievements under his tenure: a clearer roadmap, accelerated decision-making, improved external communications, greater openness to institutions, and new treasury policies.

He pointed to the emergence of the EF’s dedicated decentralized AI team and the upcoming merged LEAN Ethereum and core development roadmap.

Tomasz will return to building on Ethereum, with a particular focus on AI. Source.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig announced the full 35-member Innovation Advisory Committee, and the roster is stacked with crypto heavyweights. Etherealize CEO Vivek Raman is among the appointees, alongside Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Uniswap’s Hayden Adams, Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev, and Polymarket’ Shayne Coplan. The committee, formerly the Technology Advisory Committee, will advise the CFTC on how AI and blockchain are transforming derivatives and commodity markets.

Having Raman, whose Etherealize focuses on institutional Ethereum adoption, at the regulatory table is a meaningful development for the Ethereum ecosystem’s Washington presence.

Robinhood launched the public testnet for Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 built onin partnership with Arbitrum, announced at Consensus Hong Kong. The chain is designed to support tokenized real-world assets, 24/7 trading, and self-custody through Robinhood’s crypto wallet. Infrastructure partners including Alchemy, Chainlink, LayerZero, and TRM are already integrating. Robinhood is committing $1 million to the 2026 Arbitrum Open House program to attract developers. The mainnet launch is expected later this year. Another major fintech building on Ethereum’s rails.

Goldman’s Q4 2025 13F filing landed with a bang. The bank reported $1.1 billion in Bitcoin and $1.0 billion in Ethereum, plus another $250 million in a number of other protocols (via ETFs). Total crypto exposure hit $2.36 billion, up 15% quarter over quarter, though it represents just 0.33% of the bank’s total reported portfolio.

Goldman CEO David Solomon is scheduled to speak at the World Liberty Forum, and the bank had representation at this week’s White House meeting on stablecoin yield. Source.

HM Treasury appointed HSBC to power the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot, potentially making the UK the first G7 nation to issue sovereign bonds on a blockchain. The experiment will run inside the Bank of England’s “digital sandbox” regulatory environment. HSBC brings credibility here having already facilitated over $3.5 billion in digital bond issuances globally, including Hong Kong’s $1.3 billion green bond. The pilot aims to slash settlement times and reduce operational costs. Law firm Ashurst is advising on legal structure. The UK has faced criticism for lagging behind Hong Kong and Luxembourg on tokenized government debt, and this move signals urgency to catch up. Source.

Ondo Finance is enabling SPYon (S&P 500 ETF), QQQon (Nasdaq 100 ETF), and TSLAon (Tesla) to function as productive collateral in Ethereum DeFi lending markets. This is a first.

Users on Euler can now borrow stablecoins against their tokenized stock positions, unlocking liquidity without triggering a sale. Sentora manages the risk parameters. Until now, tokenized stocks on-chain were essentially passive, buy-and-hold instruments. These assets can now behave like true DeFi building blocks. This bridges TradFi collateral logic (stocks as loan collateral) into permissionless finance.

Tokenized Assets: The Fastest-Growing Frontier in Crypto

Token Terminal published its latest tokenized asset deployment leaderboard, and the data reinforces what this week’s headlines are showing: tokenized assets are now the fastest-growing category in the crypto ecosystem. More than 2,100 tokenized assets have been deployed across 140+ issuers and 80+ blockchains. The RWA sector grew 232% in 2025, reaching $18.6 billion, up from $5.6 billion in 2024. And with BlackRock, Goldman, Apollo, Ondo, Robinhood, and the UK government all making moves in a single week, the trajectory is only steepening.

Reach institutional decision-makers shaping the future of crypto adoption. Reach out

What the Institutional Shift Means for Ethereum | Danny Ryan & Tomasz Stanczak at Casa W3G

Given this week’s news of Tomasz stepping down from the EF to focus on building, this conversation is especially timely. Danny Ryan and Tomasz discuss the institutional shift toward Ethereum, what it means for the protocol’s evolution, and how the ecosystem should position itself as traditional finance accelerates its onchain migration.

→ Head of Marketing - Etherealize (New York)

→ Sponorships Manager - EF Devcon Team (Remove) - DM David / James

→ Digital Assets Strategist, Vice President/Executive Director - Morgan Stanley (New York)

→ Director, Product and Innovation - Tokenization - BNY (New York)

→ Digital Assets Strategy Lead — Nasdaq (New York)

Thanks for reading. Please like and engage with this post and share with just 1 friend!

James Smith & David Walsh