BlackRock sees Ethereum as gatekeeper to tokenization even as market share goes elsewhere

BlackRock’s 2026 Thematic Outlook places Ethereum on the middle of the tokenization argument, asking whether or not the community will operate as a “toll street.”

“Greater than 65% of tokenized property are on Ethereum,” BlackRock stated.

The framing pushes Ethereum into an infrastructure function moderately than a directional name on ETH. The “toll street” mannequin relies on the place issuance, settlement, and toll funds happen as real-world property and tokenized money transfer on-chain.

BlackRock cited Coin Metrics and Allium through its Visa Onchain Analytics dashboard, noting that stablecoin buying and selling volumes are adjusted to “eradicate inorganic exercise (equivalent to bots).”

This caveat narrows the metrics buyers could depend on when changing tokenization “exercise” into financial throughput.

Ethereum shares are a shifting goal

A market examine in late January exhibits why the “over 65%” determine must be handled as present.

Ethereum’s tokenized RWA market share is 59.84%, with a complete worth of roughly $12.8 billion as of January twenty second, in keeping with the RWA.xyz listing view.

The RWA.xyz community view additionally exhibits Ethereum main by worth, with a complete worth of $13,433,02,447 (excluding stablecoins), and the timestamp within the desk is round January twenty first.

There’s room for share drift between these measurements and BlackRock’s Jan. 5 numbers.

This variation can happen as issuance expands to different chains or reporting home windows change.

For ETH holders, the query trying ahead is much less about whether or not monetary establishments will tokenize their property and extra about whether or not tokenization will route fee-paying settlements right into a path involving ETH.

BlackRock’s case leans towards Ethereum as the bottom layer for tokenized property. Nonetheless, the function of the bottom layer could change into diluted if execution strikes to rollups, or if tokenized funds are unfold throughout a number of L1s the place customers don’t contact ETH.

Roll-ups and toll passes complicate the “toll street” idea

L2BEAT’s rollup overview exhibits a big pool of worth that has already been “captured” by main Ethereum rollups.

Arbitrum One is listed at $17.52 billion, Base at $12.94 billion and OP Mainnet at $2.33 billion, every labeled as Stage 1.

This structure permits Ethereum to take care of its fee function whereas transitioning the place customers pay their every day charges.

The economics of performing a rollup and price property fluctuate by design, and though Ethereum stays the underlying safety layer, the variations are vital for incomes charges.

Tokenized money has the potential to change into a serious throughput driver for tokenized portfolios and comes with clearer state of affairs calculations.

Citi’s stablecoin report fashions issuance in 2030 at $1.9 trillion within the base case and $4.0 trillion within the bull case.

These balances mixed with the 50x velocity assumption modeled roughly $100 trillion and $200 trillion of buying and selling exercise, respectively.

The mechanistic implication is that even small modifications in market share in a fee community can change into vital if exercise scales to that degree.

Measurement methodologies are central when buyers search to deduce price era from uncooked on-chain flows.

Stablecoin “noise”, multi-chain merchandise, and the one ledger debate

Visa claimed that the quantity of stablecoin transfers contained “noise.”

For example, Visa stated that after eradicating inorganic exercise, stablecoin buying and selling quantity prior to now 30 days decreased from $3.9 trillion to $817.5 billion.

BlackRock’s tokenization slide mentions the identical idea of bot removing, tying the story to a extra narrowly outlined financial use.

If a “toll street” is supposed to be monetized by funds, then the investable variable isn’t headline switch quantity, however natural fee demand that can not be replicated cheaply elsewhere.

Multi-chain distribution is already displaying up in institutional product design, complicating the linear “tokenization equals ETH demand” argument.

BlackRock’s tokenized fund BUIDL is offered on seven blockchains, with wormholes enabling cross-chain interoperability.

This helps a path for non-Ethereum chains to outlive as a distribution and venue-specific utility layer, even when Ethereum maintains the lead in issuance and fee reliability.

One other component of the controversy focuses on whether or not institutional tokenization will find yourself with one frequent ledger.

The theme was popularized throughout Davos Week. on social media by posts that includes Remark from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

A World Financial Discussion board doc printed this month helps a variety of claims about the advantages of tokenization, together with themes equivalent to fragmentation and quicker funds.

Nonetheless, the WEF stopped in need of validating the “single blockchain” phrase in its 2026 digital asset outlook and tokenization explanatory video.

For Ethereum’s decentralization idea, an investable rigidity is whether or not the bottom layer can stay impartial as tokenization turns into tied to large-scale issuers and controlled venues.

Claims of “transparency” depend upon credible resistance to unilateral change and the finality of settlements inherited by downstream lessons.

Now, L2BEAT’s staged framework and value-secured knowledge present that rollups are scaling up below Ethereum’s safety umbrella, whereas BUIDL’s multi-chain rollout exhibits that main issuers are additionally mitigating platform focus dangers.

BlackRock’s “toll street” slide set the market share metric at over 65%.

The RWA dashboard and multi-chain product launch in late January confirmed that the near-term battleground is measuring total RWA sector share, fee areas, and natural utilization.

The identical dynamics are prone to form how buyers interpret the expansion of tokenized authorities bonds and different on-chain issuance classes.