More than 50 non-crypto native companies have built products and services on Ethereum or Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) networks. From fashion giants like Louis Vuitton and Adidas to financial leaders like Deutsche Bank and PayPal, these companies' innovative practices are reshaping the landscape of the crypto industry. Notably, the crypto businesses of these traditional corporations are not focused on generic market infrastructure such as crypto trading, custody, auditing, and compliance, but rather on specific crypto infrastructure and use cases, such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Real-World Assets (RWAs), Web3 developer tools, and Layer 2 networks. Among the 20 financial institutions building crypto-specific infrastructure and applications, 10 are banks, and most are actively issuing Real-World Assets on Ethereum. This report aims to deeply analyze Ethereum's pioneering and leading application scenarios in traditional enterprises and institutions.
Introduction
In this report, the crypto industry can be divided into three main segments:
· Generic Infrastructure: Companies providing products and services related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, which are not unique or exclusive to the crypto industry, such as generic market infrastructure (e.g., trading platforms, market makers, asset management) and generic business support (e.g., banking, accounting, consulting, compliance).
· Crypto-Specific Infrastructure: Companies providing products and services that are unique and exclusive to the crypto industry. For example, companies involved in mining, staking, and building on-chain oracles, whose infrastructure is tailored specifically for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
· Crypto Applications and Use Cases: Companies building consumer-facing applications that run fully or partially on the blockchain. For example, decentralized exchanges that can execute crypto transactions automatically on the blockchain without relying on third-party intermediaries.
Today, traditional companies are no longer limited to expanding their existing applications and service suites to support cryptocurrencies, but are actively innovating new products and services that can only be realized through blockchain. Furthermore, at least 55 of these companies are building on public blockchains such as Ethereum, as well as Ethereum Layer 2 networks like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Base.
The following is a market map of 55 non-crypto native companies that have built or are building crypto-specific infrastructure and applications on Ethereum or Ethereum Layer 2 networks.
Among the 55 companies on the list, at least 23 are issuing Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum or Ethereum Layer 2 networks.
While most companies are building directly on Ethereum, at least 17 have already or are exploring multiple general-purpose blockchains and L2s.
Real-World Assets (RWAs) on Ethereum
One common type of non-crypto company operating in the Ethereum ecosystem is financial institutions, such as banks, asset managers, payment processors, trading platforms, and accounting firms. Among the 20 financial institutions identified as building crypto-specific infrastructure and applications, 13 are issuing Real-World Assets on Ethereum and Ethereum L2s. The types of Real-World Assets issued on-chain are diverse, ranging from the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund to government bonds issued by the European Investment Bank.
Ethereum is the blockchain of choice for tokenizing assets, with the total value of its Real-World Assets nearly 10 times that of the second most popular Real-World Asset blockchain, Stellar. ZKsync, an Ethereum L2 network, has both a higher number and total value of Real-World Assets issued on-chain than Stellar. Of the top 10 networks issuing Real-World Assets, six are Ethereum or Ethereum L2s.
As of February 11, 2025, the third-largest tokenized fund across all blockchains is BlackRock's BUIDL, a U.S. dollar institutional digital liquidity fund. Launched in March 2024, the fund provides investors with U.S. dollar yields and offers the advantages of instant, transparent settlement and interoperability between traditional finance and decentralized finance markets. BlackRock's Head of Digital Assets, Robert Mitchnick, stated last March: "Through tokenization, we've packaged traditional financial investment exposures into a crypto-native wrapper."
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, collaborated with tokenization platform Securitize and U.S. financial services company BNY Mellon to first launch BUIDL on Ethereum. Since its launch in March last year, BlackRock has expanded the fund to five additional networks, three of which are Ethereum L2s.
The value of Real-World Assets issued on Ethereum has doubled in the past year. According to data from rwa.xyz, over 160 Real-World Assets have been issued on Ethereum, distributed across 60,000 active wallet addresses. This does not include stablecoins.
While still limited in number, some financial institutions involved in Real-World Assets and tokenization are also developing their own stablecoins. Payment processor PayPal launched its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin PYUSD on Ethereum in August 2023, and later expanded PYUSD's issuance to Solana. Trading platform Robinhood, in collaboration with a range of crypto-native institutions including Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei, Anchorage, Bullish, and Paxos, also launched its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin USDG on Ethereum in November 2024.
The total circulating supply of stablecoins on Ethereum has grown by 70% in the past year. These stablecoins vary in their collateral composition and design types, but the vast majority are U.S. dollar-pegged tools backed by high-quality liquid assets. As of February 11, 2025, Ethereum accounts for over 50% of the total stablecoin market share.
According to Galaxy Research, the total stablecoin supply is expected to double by 2025, exceeding $400 billion. One catalyst accelerating the launch of new stablecoins by traditional financial institutions this year is Stripe's $1 billion acquisition of stablecoin payment platform Bridge in 2024. Regarding the acquisition, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison stated: "Stablecoins are the superconductors of finance. Powered by stablecoins, global enterprises will see significant improvements in speed, reach, and cost in the coming years."
In the U.S., another catalyst for Real-World Assets and stablecoin applications is the regulatory environment. On Tuesday, February 4, 2025, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce issued a statement outlining the SEC's specific priorities and themes for the digital asset industry, with the ninth item emphasizing the modernization of traditional finance through tokenization. The statement said: "The Specialized Working Group also plans to examine the intersection of cryptocurrencies with clearinghouse and transfer agent rules. We will continue to engage with market participants interested in tokenizing securities or otherwise using blockchain technology to modernize traditional financial markets."
Real-World Assets and stablecoins are crypto-native use cases that are rapidly finding product-market fit in traditional financial institutions. As the most decentralized, crypto-native user-centric, and longest-running general-purpose blockchain, Ethereum is the gateway for many institutions to incubate and launch crypto-focused financial services and products.
Scalable Blockchain Infrastructure
While Ethereum has been the entry point for many financial institutions and non-crypto native companies to adopt cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, it is not the scalable protocol for new blockchain use cases. Compared to blockchains like Solana, Ethereum has lower performance, slower block times, and higher transaction fees. Ethereum protocol developers are unwilling to sacrifice the network's resilience and security for speed, and are instead focused on scaling Ethereum through L2. Scaling solutions are a type of blockchain infrastructure that can inherit Ethereum's security and scale to millions of new users.
Non-crypto native companies are not only pushing crypto use cases like tokenization on Ethereum, but are also investing in the infrastructure needed to support these use cases to reach a broader audience than crypto-native users. Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, is collaborating with Matter Labs, the builders of the ZKSync scaling solution, to develop a new scaling solution on Ethereum. Codenamed DAMA 2, it is part of a broader initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and 24 other global financial institutions to explore use cases of public blockchains in global finance.
Deutsche Bank's main motivation for developing an L2 network is to create a scalable, auditable, transparent, and interoperable blockchain infrastructure with regulated platforms and financial services. According to Alex Gluchowski, co-creator of ZKSync, the reason institutions like Deutsche Bank choose to build on ZKSync is "because it allows them to build in Web3 without compromise. ZKSync provides institutions with a customizable architecture to build tailored solutions that achieve privacy, scalability, and interoperability with other private and public blockchains."
Financial institutions like Deutsche Bank are developing scalable, customizable, and region-compliant blockchain infrastructure on Ethereum. However, the appeal of scalable and customizable blockchain infrastructure is not limited to financial use cases.
Japanese conglomerate Sony recently launched its own scaling solution using the OP technology stack on Ethereum. Their motivation for creating and operating their own general-purpose scaling solution is to support a broader gaming, finance, and entertainment ecosystem. Regarding Sony's L2 network Soneium, Jun Watanabe, Chairman of Sony's Blockchain Solution Lab, stated: "I believe that developing comprehensive Web3 solutions based on blockchain is of great significance to the Sony Group. Sony is committed to 'fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology', and has been engaged in a wide range of businesses."
Since the launch of Soneium, the protocol has faced strong backlash due to Sony's control over on-chain activities, particularly token transfer restrictions and address blacklisting. While this event has raised questions about the degree of control enterprises should have over scaling solutions built on permissionless infrastructures like Ethereum, it also highlights the determination of one of the world's largest conglomerates to seek answers to these questions. Sony's investment in new digital experiences and applications through a scaling solution on Ethereum demonstrates the potential value of the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem and L2s.
Gaming on Ethereum L2 Networks
NFTs have been a primary use case for traditional companies, with participants including luxury fashion brands like Louis Vuitton and Coach, as well as luxury automakers like Porsche and Lamborghini. Most of the NFTs issued by these companies were during the peak of the NFT hype from 2021 to 2023. Given the NFT downturn in the past few years, many companies are no longer issuing NFTs on Ethereum and Ethereum L2 networks by 2025.
The few companies that are still actively issuing NFTs on Ethereum in 2025 are almost entirely in the context of game development, and almost exclusively on Ethereum L2 networks rather than the Ethereum mainnet.
In July 2024, gaming giant Atari deployed its two classic arcade games Asteroids and Breakout on the Ethereum L2 network Base, operated by Coinbase. By the end of August 2024, gamers could earn rewards, mint exclusive Atari NFTs, and redeem physical merchandise on Base. A few months after Atari's foray into on-chain gaming, in October 2024, Lamborghini announced a collaboration with Web3 gaming company Animoca Brands to launch a digital collectibles platform called FastForWorld.
FastForWorld allows gamers to buy, sell, and drive Lamborghini cars in a series of games developed by Animoca Brands, including Torque Drift 2, REVV Racing, Garage Universe, and exclusive FastForWorld experiences.
The in-game assets of FastForWorld are minted on Base. The first version of the platform launched on November 7, 2024 and is still actively being developed, with further expansions to the FastForWorld platform expected to be announced in 2025.
Most recently, on January 7, 2025, Lotte Group, one of the five largest conglomerates in South Korea, announced a deeper partnership with the Arbitrum Foundation and Offchain Labs to build Lotte's metaverse gaming platform "Caliverse" on the Ethereum L2 network Arbitrum. Caliverse is already live, allowing users to shop, attend virtual concerts, and play games on the platform. Kima Kim, CEO of Caliverse, said when discussing the collaboration with Arbitrum: "We are excited to partner with the most trusted blockchain Arbitrum as we take our first steps into the blockchain world, and through Lotte Caliverse, we will leverage Lotte's successful history in retail to provide exceptional products and services to over 40 million people." During CES 2025 in Las Vegas, the Caliverse team announced plans to introduce virtual reality and 3D movie features on their platform in the first half of 2025.
The continued investment and development of NFTs by non-crypto native companies like Atari, Lamborghini, and Lotte's Caliverse is most notable in the context of on-chain gaming applications. Blockchain-based games may require frequent on-chain transactions, which could lead to high fees and network congestion. Therefore, these companies are building games on Ethereum L2 networks to leverage the scalability advantages of Ethereum's L2-centric architecture.
According to Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, "Arbitrum blockchain's industry-leading 250ms block time makes it an ideal home for Caliverse, supporting seamless virtual world and gaming use cases."
Conclusion
NFTs and real-world assets are the primary use cases for Ethereum among non-crypto native companies and institutions. Among the companies issuing NFTs in the Ethereum ecosystem, the most active in 2025 are doing so in the context of on-chain gaming applications built on Ethereum L2 networks. This highlights how the scalability of L2 networks can help support crypto-native use cases, such as gaming that requires frequent on-chain interactions, for large retail brands and enterprises. Ethereum's commitment to scaling its infrastructure through scaling solutions also provides opportunities for early technology adopters in traditional finance and other industries to lead non-speculative applications of cryptocurrencies by creating customizable and compliant infrastructure for these use cases. Finally, Ethereum remains the blockchain of choice for traditional financial companies to issue real-world assets and stablecoins. Key partnerships established in 2024 are expected to drive new progress in stablecoin adoption in 2025.
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