Ethereum

Ethereum is a public, programmable blockchain: instead of only recording transfers of one currency, as Bitcoin does, it runs smart contracts, small programs that execute exactly as written once triggered. A bond's coupon schedule, a fund's transfer restrictions or a lending protocol's collateral rules can all live in a smart contract on Ethereum, which is why banks and asset managers use it as settlement infrastructure, not only as a market to trade on.

Ethereum switched from proof of work, the mining process Bitcoin still uses, to proof of stake in 2022. Validators lock ether to take part in the network instead of running mining hardware, which is why staking, not mining, is now the way to earn network rewards on Ethereum. The Finance Loop hub answer on staking covers the mechanics, including the 32 ETH a solo validator needs.

Ether (ETH) is the native asset of Ethereum. Ether pays the network's transaction fees, and since the move to proof of stake it is also the asset validators lock up to secure the chain. Beyond ETH, Ethereum carries a large share of the tokenized assets institutions actually hold: stETH represents ETH staked through the liquid staking protocol from Lido, so a holder keeps a tradable token while the underlying ETH stays staked. USDC and EURC, the dollar and euro stablecoins from Circle, both settle on Ethereum among other chains. The USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund from BlackRock, known as BUIDL, exists as a token on Ethereum, and BENJI from Franklin Templeton, the onchain share of its US government money fund, runs on Ethereum alongside eight other public blockchains, including Stellar, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Aptos, Base, Solana and BNB Smart Chain.

In 2019, the Fundament RE Germany prospectus described subordinated token-based bonds on Ethereum with a maximum total nominal amount of 250 million euros for investment in real estate. The properties to be acquired had not been determined when the prospectus was prepared. The prospectus predates the German Electronic Securities Act (eWpG), which took effect in June 2021. Siemens issued a one-year digital bond of 60 million euros under that law on Polygon, a separate public blockchain (CoinDesk), without a paper global certificate or central clearing; Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe kept the register, and DekaBank bought the bond together with DZ BANK and fellow investor Union Investment. The Finance Loop page on tokenization in Germany covers the eWpG and its register rules in full.

On the fund side, BUIDL from BlackRock is the largest tokenized fund by assets and uses Securitize as its tokenization platform and transfer agent; it targets a stable one-dollar share value and accrues yield to holders daily. DTCC named tokenized money market fund shares among the products in its 2026 tokenization pilot, run alongside BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Vanguard. The Finance Loop page on tokenized money market funds has the detail on BUIDL, BENJI and the collateral use case banks name most often for both.

Custody of ether for clients is a crypto-asset service under MiCA. Providers need authorization for custody or, where eligible, the Article 60 notification procedure; credit institutions can use that procedure. Other regulated banking or investment services remain subject to the Banking Act or the Investment Firm Act, depending on the activity; tokenized financial instruments fall outside MiCA. BaFin is the relevant German supervisor, and the crypto custody guide explains how clients' assets and keys are held. DZ Bank received BaFin authorization in December 2025 for its meinKrypto custody platform, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg has offered crypto custody since 2024 through Bitpanda's institutional platform (provider), and Deutsche Bank expects its own MiCA custody license in the second half of 2026, covering bitcoin, ether and the stablecoins USDC, EURC and EURAU.

Staking ether is legal in the EU: the European Commission confirmed on 20 June 2024 that MiCA does not prohibit staking, though a provider that stakes on behalf of clients needs the custody authorization under MiCA's Article 75. In Frankfurt, Crypto Finance (Deutschland) GmbH, a Deutsche Börse Group company with a MiCA license since January 2025, launched a staking service for Ethereum and Solana clients on 15 October 2025. A retail or institutional investor who wants exposure without running a validator can also buy a listed crypto ETP on a regulated exchange such as Xetra, which settles through the custody chain an institution already uses for other securities.

A smart contract on Ethereum only knows what a transaction writes to it, so a lending protocol, a tokenized fund or a derivatives platform still needs a price, an exchange rate or a net asset value from outside the chain. Chainlink is the oracle network most widely used on Ethereum for that job: its Data Feeds deliver prices to smart contracts, and Fidelity International uses Chainlink to publish net asset value data for tokenized funds. Chainlink is not the only option; the Finance Loop page on oracle networks also names Pyth and RedStone, and its page on Chainlink covers Data Feeds, CCIP and the work of Chainlink with Swift and DTCC in depth.

Ethereum-based tokenization and custody are running themes across the Investment & Digital Assets track of Finance Loop. At Tokenization & On-Chain Capital Markets, a Point Zero Forum side event in Zurich, 21X, Franklin Templeton, DFNS, AMINA and Chainlink spoke on the infrastructure large institutions need for tokenized assets, many of them issued on Ethereum. Chainlink Labs, whose network secures pricing and cross-chain transfers for Ethereum-based tokenized funds, sponsored a panel on oracle networks that Finance Loop ran with TechQuartier in Frankfurt. Finance Loop has also partnered with the Crypto Assets Conference of Frankfurt School and Deutsche Börse, where tokenized asset infrastructure regularly takes up much of the program.

BaFin approved a 250 million euro real estate bond on Ethereum from the Fundament Group. DZ Bank, Deutsche Bank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg all run or plan ether custody services under BaFin licenses.

Staking locks ETH so a validator can take part in the proof-of-stake consensus of Ethereum and earn network rewards in return. Staking is legal in the EU: the European Commission confirmed MiCA does not prohibit staking. A provider that stakes on behalf of clients needs the custody authorization under MiCA, which BaFin issues in Germany; Crypto Finance in Frankfurt launched an Ethereum staking service under exactly that license in October 2025.

Spot Ethereum ETFs trade in the United States and, as ETPs, on European exchanges such as Xetra. Some newer US filings add staking, so the fund earns staking rewards on the ether it holds instead of leaving it idle. European crypto ETPs settle through the same regulated custody chain as any other listed security, which is why institutions often prefer them over running a validator themselves.

Chainlink launched on Ethereum and remains most active there, though its network now also serves other chains. A lending protocol or a tokenized fund on Ethereum typically reads its price or net asset value data from a Chainlink feed, instead of building its own connection to an outside data source.

BUIDL from BlackRock and BENJI from Franklin Templeton, both available on Ethereum, let a trading firm post fund shares as collateral around the clock, without waiting for the fund's normal redemption cycle. DTCC included tokenized money market fund shares in the tokenization pilot it ran with BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Vanguard.