BlackRock’s 2026 thematic outlook places Ethereum at the center of Wall Street’s tokenization agenda, describing it as the main settlement infrastructure for tokenized assets and real-world assets (RWAs). In BlackRock’s framing, Ethereum is not just a smart-contract network; it is the default “plumbing” institutions are using to move regulated value on-chain.
The firm estimates Ethereum holds roughly 65–66% of tokenized assets, and says that figure rises to about 89% when Layer 2 activity is included. BlackRock treats that combined footprint as a signal that institutional tokenization is consolidating around a single, security-first stack rather than fragmenting evenly across competing chains.
Why Ethereum sits at the center of tokenization
BlackRock attributes Ethereum’s lead to security, developer depth, and smart-contract functionality that map cleanly onto compliance-sensitive use cases. The report calls Ethereum the sector’s “invisible backbone” and core “rails,” arguing it lowers counterparty risk while enabling programmable distribution and compliance logic.
The outlook also anchors the tokenization narrative in market-size momentum. Tokenized markets, including stablecoins, are described as growing from about $4 billion in December 2019 to roughly $331 billion by November 2025, with tokenized U.S. Treasuries identified as the largest category. BlackRock additionally pegs real-world-asset tokenization at more than $35 billion by Q4 2025, reinforcing the point that institutional-grade issuance is no longer theoretical.
What BlackRock’s own products signal about adoption
BlackRock points to its own footprint as a practical indicator of how fast institutional wrappers are scaling. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is described as one of the fastest-growing exchange-traded products, exceeding $70 billion in net assets. That growth, in the report’s logic, supports the view that regulated access points can accelerate adoption even when the underlying market remains volatile.
On the tokenization side, BlackRock cites the BUIDL tokenized fund at $1.6 billion and notes it held about $499 million in Ethereum and $503 million in BNB Chain at the time of the report. The split is presented as an intentional, multi-chain posture: Ethereum for high-assurance settlement, and other rails where cost or speed optimization is the priority.
BlackRock’s competitive snapshot quantifies the wider landscape while still emphasizing Ethereum’s lead: Ethereum at ~65–66% of tokenized assets (about 89% including L2s), with BNB Chain at 10%, Solana at 5%, Arbitrum at 4%, Stellar at 4%, and Avalanche at 3%. The message is that alternatives can be additive for specific workloads, but they have not displaced Ethereum as the preferred base layer for high-value RWAs.
Looking forward, BlackRock characterizes the market as dynamic rather than settled, acknowledging that fee-sensitive operations may migrate while arguing that institutional trust and security requirements keep Ethereum central to custody, settlement, and on-chain treasury functions. With projections that tokenized-asset markets could exceed $11 trillion by 2030, the report frames the real gating factors as regulatory clarity, protocol standards, and institutional-grade infrastructure—not curiosity or experimentation.