Keeping Ethereum the Home of Institutional Finance: Why We Need an Institutional Front Door

Transcript

[music] Good morning. Thanks for uh thanks for having me on on short notice. Um I'm Marius. I'm one of the uh the co-founders of Ethereum Institutional. Um we are one of the more recent spinouts from the Ethereum Foundation um that you that you may have seen. Uh and yeah, we we announced two weeks.

It's been a a pretty exciting time with a lot of um positive reception, but also a lot of things to to do. Um and uh what I wanted to do today is just quickly walk you through why we're here. um what we plan on doing, why we think that a dedicated entity is is needed to to drive institution adoption work for for Ethereum um and talk a little bit more about kind of the the market forces and things that we see shaping the the crypto ecosystem and institution adoption right now. I'll be around afterwards as well if um if anyone wants to if anyone wants to chat. Um so I've called this presentation keeping Ethereum the uh the home of institutional finance and I've chosen uh

keeping uh deliberately that I'll I'll go into in a second. Um and the the second part is why we we actually need an an institutional front door. Um which is another term I'll I'll talk a little bit more about. Um so why are we here and and why do we need this this front door? And by front door we we mean an access point really like someone that people can can come to speak to whenever they're navigating uh important decisions on on blockchains um and and more importantly which blockchains to to launch on. Um so what we're seeing and our general thesis is that in the next two years most of the major banks as managers market infra

infrastructures they will begin to log in uh the platforms and the rails that they will use um for use cases such as tokenization stable coins and onchain settlement more more generally. Um these decisions will be quite pivotal in that we're effectively rewiring the entire financial system and so the decisions that are being made now in the next two years will be uh pretty important and will have longlasting effects also for for how we think about these integrations and and and the ecosystem going forward. Um and so while the the discourse and I think a lot of what has been discussed in the years and people say like the institutions are coming the

institutions are coming. Um I think the the question is not so much more on on timing because everyone that we engage with have you know a strategy in place and and are moving on chain now. Um but there's the big positioning game happening uh and all these institutions are are gearing up to figure out where do they want to build and and what are the uh what are the implementations they need to have in place in order to to tap into the onchain economy in in in a scalable and and longlasting uh way. Um so why does Ethereum need a front door?

Um so one of the the things and we we all used to work inside of the Ethereum Foundation uh before but as you know the the foundation wanted to to sharpen it it focus a little bit. We wanted to be uh go back to say some of the the core principles and and embrace um the new mandate that was issued and and crops aligned work. Um, Vitalic also openly said that the foundation sees itself being part of a a multi-node ecosystem that that all contributes to to the vision and and adoption of of Ethereum generally. And so we're we're product of that. And what we what we found in inside of the foundation was that it at times was a bit tricky to carry out the

institutional adoption work that we that we wanted to do. um uh and es especially uh in times now where where these institutions are are really ready to to engage. Um the second is and I think to to my previous point as well in the other slide is that the institutions are actually making decisions now and I think in the next 6 12 months there's a massive positioning game happening where it is very critical that you have someone that can that can adequately represent Ethereum in its in its ecosystem.

Um and that doesn't really exist today. So there's a bunch of different teams um out there that each say have their own commercial interest. I think generally all aligned that um Ethereum is the best global settlement layer but there isn't really one entity that these institutions can can go to and and interact with um as opposed to when they go to a a Solana or Kenton or someone else where it's very clear that there's this one uh foundation operating company that that they can speak to. So we need a dedicated and a neutral interface for for this type of engagement work uh for coordination with with the ecosystem as well. Um but also on on on deployment support and actually helping these

institutions move on chain and unblocking them in in doing so. Um and then the second thing is cuz Ethereum is is already the leading institution settlement layer and uh it it combines I think a lot of these qualities that that institutions really really care about and this is not news to people in in the room uh per se but it is the most patent tested infrastructure. Uh it has the most amount of of uptime of of of any chain.

It's deepest liquidity um across uh all the digital asset markets. It's the most credibly neutral um uh infrastructure and I think a lot of institutions see a lot of value in it. Uh and at the same time it is also the the largest ecosystem by far. If you look at developers, if you look at infrastructure, if if we look at applications available to uh to people that want to participate, um that alone unfortunately doesn't do all the job. So I think while Ethereum has has benefited from from being a first mover, um and and from having say a lot of uh the core plumbing in in place that makes it very easy for institutions to take the

decision on on at least starting on on Ethereum. um the dynamics are are shifting a little bit um as I wanted to bring bring this slide I'm not sure if you can you can read it um but what we're observing right now and this is perhaps no news but there's a lot of competitors out there and there's a lot of different teams u it's not to call out specifically but I just thought it was interesting that uh you see here that the future may be multi-chain but um institutional finance is is converging on on Solana for instance and uh then you go and you look at the uh the market cap for real world assets

that you can see that that's clearly not the case right but the point that I'm trying to make here is that there's a lot of voices in the rooms with key decision makers um at all these financial institutions that are influencing them that are uh that are speaking to them engaging them directly telling them why you know one technology stack is is better than the other. Um and so dynamics are are shifting and whilst Ethereum has a lot of these um features that we love and care about, it's not enough to make sure that that Ethereum wins.

Um so we generally think that there these kind of four forces that are converging in in this window of opportunity that that we see now. Um, one we're faced with, uh, a competitive field that is is growing and and accelerating. I mentioned some uh some change here, but you have Canton that is getting a lot of momentum on especially in institutional context. You have Arc from Circle, you have Salana, you have Tempo, um many other chains that are positioning themselves at the moment and uh all of them with uh very attractive incentives, big incentives to come and deploy um large sophisticated business development teams that are constantly knocking on the doors of of all the

major and largest institutions um and also clear coordination and I mentioned that before, but it's very easy for institutions to navigate other ecosystems because there's usually just one entity or team that you have to engage with. It's a bit trickier when when when you go and and try to navigate the Ethereum ecosystem. Um, so the institution mind share is uh is is contested and it's a point here I'm trying to to make and it's it's clear that Ethereum is is already winning and and and in the lead but we are faced with you know increased scrutiny and competitive pressure for a lot of these uh other ecosystems that are now pushing the accelerator much more aggressively.

At the same time, what we say is like the platform choices and to my first point in this presentation, they're also hardening. So, a lot of decisions that are being made on where do I want to issue uh the the asset I want to issue or how do I incorporate a certain stack into my my existing infrastructure. A lot of these choices um will say increase to harden. And while there is still a selection uh process happening for some of the major chains, there's only this window of opportunity now to really go in and make sure that Ethereum is uh if not the one but at least one of the the chains that will become that will be part of this kind of initial stack that's been chosen. Um so we need

a clear interface. We need someone that can can go and engage these institutions, that can sit in the room with them, that can help them navigate Ethereum and its ecosystem, that can tell them why Ethereum is great versus other chains, that can highlight the unique properties, that can get them closer to the road map, um, al also help unblock them uh so that uh they have a simpler and easier path to um to adopting the the technology. Um and that's where we are today. So that's why we launched Ethereum institution and and we we announced this a couple of weeks ago. Um we initially set up as a as an independent nonprofit organization. Uh our broad mandate is to

to represent Ethereum uh and the wider ecosystem. So their tools, applications, um service providers, builders, anyone that's engaging with um or contributing to Ethereum in one way or another are people that we want to bring in. Uh but we need to have say a centralized interface for institutions to to come and engage. Uh so we raised funds from from from Lee at Bitmine, from Jolubin, Shar link um and around a hundred other teams from from the wider crypto ecosystem to to go out and and build this independent organization. So uh we're team of uh of three people now which is uh not a whole lot and clearly

not enough to to make a dent but we we have the capital and resources now to go out and and build a 15 20 25 people team initially that can that can go out and and do this work. Um we initially set up as a nonprofit. I think that's important to us from from an optics perspective as well. there is no shareholder interest that we necessarily need to pursue. Uh and we we try to be as as as neutral as as as possible in terms of how we think about adoption of Ethereum and and its ecosystem. We can though be opinionated in terms of who we align ourselves more closely with and our aspiration is also to be more commercial when we engage with with these banks. Um, and the last point here on this slide is that we

we're institutional and I think it's very easy for us to say and articulate what what our mandate is. We just want to speak to institutions and our ultimate goal is to secure institutional adoption. Um, so what are we going to do? Um, there's a few different different things here and the next slide I'll go into more detail on like what what that actually means. But it's clear that we have this like the competition is increasing. Uh we have so many people at the front doors of these institutions that that are engaging and we did a lot of this work at at the Ethereum Foundation where we over the past year I think engaged more than than 500 different institutions. Um but we need to ramp that up and we need to

accelerate that even further. Uh so we want to make sure that we have representation with all these different institutional participants before and when they're taking important decisions on where do they want to deploy what kind of integration what kind of infrastructure do they want to align themselves more closely with um and how should they think about Ethereum and and the broader ecosystem. Um as part of that we're also planning on issuing much more research. We want to be a collector of intelligence for the ecosystem. We want to surface institutional requirements into um into papers into uh blueprints into work that can help us scale adoption uh much more efficiently than just engaging

onetoone with these institutions as well. The third thing is that we we want to talk about ETH the asset. We think that's an important narrative um and important for the ecosystem as well. We're very deliberate about it, but we also want to talk about all the interesting things that are happening on on institutional Ethereum. The Ethereum Foundation um has has taken say a slightly different stance in terms of how it wants to to go about and um and talking about different types of deployments and um props aligned work. But we want to make sure that there is a voice for all the interesting things that are happening on Ethereum today. Uh so we want to be a voice for for institutional uh use cases. We want to

highlight every time we see you know a cool new entity coming on chain. We want to work with them to to showcase to the wider community why this is great. Uh and we want to be um be that voice that uh that effectively promotes and um articulates why why these choices are being made and and why these choices are great. Um in engaging with all these different institutions, we also want to collect requirements. We want to gather feedback. We want to understand what the bloggers are, what we need as an ecosystem to to deliver on and al in order to to accelerate efforts. Um there's a lot of questions around uh privacy, around Ethereum's road map, um around different types of nitty-gritty

implementation details as it relates to regulatory and operational compliance. And we need to produce uh better and and easier digestible material for these institutions to engage. And we also need to activate the wider Ethereum ecosystem so that we can unblock them and um uh and get to faster uh implementation times and acceleration. Um and the last thing we're going to do more of which we we we kicked off at the foundation but we want to do many more institutional events or convenings um places for these institutions to come together and meet with core developers and and builders in in the ecosystem. Um and uh we want to create say different forums or or

interfaces for this to happen. That can be that can be workshops that can be dedicated events uh but it can also be larger uh bigger scale flagship events that we look to to roll out and effectively have a cadence for the the industry to come together uh come together discuss topics and and and unblock them at a at a large much larger scale. So what are the priorities ahead like what are we going to do the next three months? Um so first and foremost we're very aggressively hiring right now um very senior people ideally with traditional financial experience and um and some blockchain exposure that can go out and and do that uh business development work with with all the

different banks. So we want to have Ethereum representatives in all the major financial hubs that can go and sit with these institutions as as they come online. we want to be much more vocal and proactive on on the marketing side of things. So we really want to accelerate um and talk more about the the interesting things that we are seeing and and work with all these in institutions in in surfacing not only their requirements but also their deployments to the ecosystem. Um to be a bit more hands-on we're also building out a four deploy engineering team uh that can sit and handhold these institutions that can understand their needs. um at a at a very deep technical level as well and surface that back into

not only the ecosystem but also into real uh uh implementations um and uh and frameworks that the wider ecosystem and other institutions could also benefit from. Um we want to expand. We we we we did the first uh institutional Ethereum forum in in New York a couple of months back which was a smaller event with 200 250 people um but really handpicked sea level executives from some of the major banks as managers etc alongside some of the key founders in in the Ethereum ecosystem. And this is something we're looking to do more of and and align with some of the the larger institutional events that are that are taking place um in in different parts of the world. Um all of this

eventually and hopefully translates into an institutional interface or platform that that we're building through which institutions can can engage with the ecosystem. Um and uh and something we're currently in in in the process of of shaping up. But you can think of it as a way for us to engage with the the the ecosystem and the institutions and in a much more scalable way. Um and this is something that that we're ultimately uh training towards and something that we want to build over the next six months. Um so that was a quick update on on where we're at. Um we're obviously extremely excited to to accelerate the the institutional adoption of Ethereum.

We're excited about the opportunity to do this. um uh with this new organization and and entity. We're very keen to work with with with anyone in in this room and in the industry that that wants to contribute or support in any way as possible. And I think it's important for us to say that um our team efforts will also be very reliant on on the wider ecosystem and our aspiration is to involve the ecosystem as as much as possible in these engagements. Um, so yeah, if this is something that resonates, uh, we're just getting off uh off the ground, but I left my contact details here. Um, I'll be around. We're very happy to chat to to anyone. We're collecting a lot of feedback at the moment and very keen to to action on that and uh and make sure we we do what

makes most sense for for both the institutions, but also for the uh for the ecosystem. Um, and with that, I'll uh pause. I think we're also almost at time. Please give him a big round of applause. [applause] >> [music] [bell]