Ethereum, Stablecoins, and the Global Financial Operating System

By Maja Vujinovic, Translated by Shaw Jinse Finance

I first experienced the power of programmable money not on Wall Street or Silicon Valley, but on the streets of Lagos and São Paulo. Having lived on five continents, worked in mobile payments, and witnessed firsthand how fragile currencies and unreliable banking infrastructure forced people to find alternatives. Later, after acquiring my first bank and collaborating with JPMorgan Chase and GE on early enterprise blockchain pilots, it became increasingly clear to me that stable, programmable value would not only complement the existing financial system but ultimately rewrite it.

This rewriting is already underway. What once seemed like fringe experiments are now becoming the foundation of a new financial system. The stablecoin market has reached $260 billion. The tokenization of government bonds, stocks, and real estate is accelerating. And Ethereum, once seen as a fractious developer playground, is now becoming the invisible settlement layer behind open networks and enterprise financial experiments. Stablecoins as the First Proof of Concept Stablecoins are the clearest demonstration that tokenization is more than just hype. For hundreds of millions of people, especially in countries grappling with inflation and capital controls, dollar-backed stablecoins aren't speculation; they're survival strategies. In Argentina, Nigeria, and Turkey, citizens are using USDC and USDT to protect themselves from the collapse of their national currencies. This effectively makes stablecoins the reserve asset of the internet age, a point regulators in Washington and Brussels often overlook when they view them as narrow compliance challenges. This geopolitical asymmetry is significant. While developed nations debate the risks, the rest of the world is adopting stablecoins as de facto infrastructure. And because stablecoins flow most smoothly on Ethereum (which accounts for over 50% of supply and over 60% of transaction volume), every new user strengthens the Ethereum ecosystem's gravity. Tokenization Beyond Buzzwords The next wave is about much more than just a digital dollar. The White House's recent 168-page strategy estimates that over $600 billion in assets will be tokenized by 2030—a figure that seems almost insignificant given the size of the global market: $120 trillion in real estate, $100 trillion in stocks, $13 trillion in government bonds, and $12 trillion in gold. I saw the tokenization trend coming years ago. When platforms like tZERO and later Securitize launched, I advised them to raise significant capital, as true mass adoption would take a decade. And now, that moment has finally arrived. Skeptics point out that tokenization isn't new, and they're right. We've seen some failed attempts at tokenizing art and securities before. But the landscape has fundamentally changed: the infrastructure has matured. Custodians like Anchorage, platforms like Securitize, and a robust decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem exist today, making tokenized assets practical. Tokenized treasuries are no longer just digital wrappers; they're collateral that can be instantly transferred, incorporated into automated liquidity strategies, or power programmable payments. This is the real story: tokenization transforms assets from static stores of value into dynamic pieces of code. Once capital becomes programmable, entirely new financial behaviors emerge. Ethereum already hosts 90% of all tokenized assets. Ethereum as a Settlement Standard This is why Ethereum matters. It's more than just a blockchain; it's the programmable settlement infrastructure for this financial internet. Permissionless, censorship-resistant, and already home to the majority of tokenization activity, Ethereum provides the foundational layer on which these new assets can actually interact. The trend is clear. Even permissioned enterprise blockchains, from JPMorgan's Onyx to new attempts by fintech giants, keep coming back to Ethereum's design. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has become the lingua franca of programmable finance, much as Microsoft Excel once became Wall Street's default operating system. Just as Excel created a universal syntax for spreadsheets, the EVM is now doing the same for ledgers: creating a universal grammar for value. The latest entrants demonstrate this. Circle has launched Arc, a permissioned L1 purpose-built for stablecoin finance, operated by a consortium of 20 institutional validators. Stripe is building Tempo, likely using Paradigm's RETH client, to provide backend settlement for its vast developer ecosystem. At first glance, these may look like dry databases, corporate intranets disguised as marketing tools. But history suggests otherwise. Companies that adopt EVM-compatible architectures are effectively reconnecting themselves to the Ethereum ecosystem. Even though Arc and Tempo haven't issued tokens yet, the pull of their incentives almost certainly means they will eventually do so. Once they do, developers and liquidity will flock to them—always using Ethereum as the settlement benchmark. This is an overlooked feedback loop: every corpo-L1 chain, even permissioned ones, expands the EVM's empire. Just as Excel has become indispensable in finance, Solidity developers have become essential for any financial institution hoping to remain competitive. In the long run, this accumulated value accrues not to the corpo-L1 chains themselves, but to the underlying infrastructure they cannot avoid—Ethereum. Geopolitically, the rise of programmable assets is less a manifestation of efficiency than a manifestation of power. Even as many countries seek alternative solutions to trade issues, stablecoins continue to perpetuate the dollar's hegemony. The EU is debating "digital sovereignty." In this context, Ethereum is more than just a blockchain. It's a neutral public good, a space where all powers—nations, corporations, and individuals—seek influence. Just as sea lanes once shaped geopolitical power, programmable settlement layers will define the new era of globalization. The real opportunity lies not just in guessing which assets will be tokenized, but in recognizing the shift in logic: capital itself becomes programmable. This means government bonds can double as collateral, stocks can be embedded in governance, real estate can provide rental income directly to token holders, and AI agents can manage portfolios in real time. The blind spot is the assumption that these changes can be confined within legacy regulatory and institutional frameworks. This is impossible. Once assets become as mobile as information, the focus will shift to the network that can settle them most quickly, securely, and transparently. Today, that's Ethereum and its scaling solutions. Conclusion: After witnessing the rise of mobile money in emerging economies, facilitating Tether's 2013 launch, and implementing the first blockchain pilots with Fortune 50 companies, I see the same pattern repeating itself globally. Stablecoins have become a parallel to the US dollar. Tokenization isn't just a marketing gimmick; it's the process of transforming capital into programmable. And Ethereum, through the quiet expansion of the EVM, is embedding itself into the operating system of programmable finance. Wall Street may not realize it yet, but it's already deeply involved in hiring EVM developers and building private blockchains. Just as no bank can ignore Excel, no financial institution can ignore the EVM. And the scale of this shift from paper to programmable isn't measured in billions, but in trillions of dollars.