Author: Frank, PANews
Recently, Etherealize, known as the "second Ethereum Foundation," announced the completion of a $40 million financing round led by top venture capital firms Electric Capital and Paradigm. Since its establishment in 2024, this startup, supported by Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation, has attracted market attention due to its strong team background and close ties to the Ethereum ecosystem.
What kind of company is this? How will it fulfill its mission of "reshaping Wall Street with Ethereum"?
The Second Ethereum Foundation or Ethereum Investment Center
Etherealize was founded in 2024, positioning itself not only as a technology startup but also as a strategic attempt for the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Etherealize was initiated with funding from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation, and from its inception, it has been closely tied to the Ethereum ecosystem. This is reflected in its name, which is a combination of Ether and Realize, symbolizing the realization of Ethereum's goals and dreams.
Etherealize's official vision is to "reshape Wall Street with Ethereum," a background and goal that far exceed that of an ordinary ecosystem startup. Therefore, Etherealize has been humorously referred to as the "second Ethereum Foundation" since its inception.
In terms of team background, it is even more closely aligned. In March of this year, Danny Ryan joined Etherealize as co-founder and president. Danny previously served as the chief researcher at the Ethereum Foundation and was a key leader in the Ethereum "merge" upgrade, enjoying a high reputation within the community. Vitalik also welcomed his joining.
Before Etherealize, the Ethereum Foundation faced criticism for being overly focused on technical research and lacking effective marketing strategies, while public chains like Solana outperformed Ethereum in terms of ecosystem activity and token market performance. However, constrained by the foundation's neutral role and the Ethereum ecosystem's commitment to decentralization, the Ethereum Foundation has never been able to make proactive adjustments.
In this context, establishing a third-party independent company to conduct marketing and market promotion for the Ethereum ecosystem has become the optimal solution. Etherealize was born out of this need.
From a role perspective, Etherealize's main goal is to accelerate the bridging of Ethereum with traditional financial institutions like Wall Street through product development, institutional sales, market education, and policy lobbying. It functions more like the "business development department" of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
In terms of team composition, Etherealize reflects this vision. In addition to the well-known Danny Ryan from the Ethereum ecosystem, Etherealize's CEO Vivek Raman has over ten years of experience on Wall Street, having worked as a fixed income trader at top investment banks such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Deutsche Bank. Another co-founder, Zach Obront, is a top security researcher and zero-knowledge technology engineer, dedicated to building fully private over-the-counter (OTC) solutions for Wall Street institutions.
Opening Wall Street's Capital Markets with RWA
As of now, Etherealize has not publicly released any mature commercial products. The $40 million financing completed in September primarily aims to accelerate the development of its institutional-grade infrastructure. However, from the three major product directions announced by the official team and past operational achievements, we can infer Etherealize's upcoming operational strategies.
Etherealize has three main product directions:
Upgrading Markets: In simple terms, this refers to asset tokenization, which can be understood as helping Wall Street issue and manage real-world assets (RWA) on Ethereum. Etherealize plans to "bring the least efficient institutional asset classes on-chain," particularly focusing on mortgages, credit, and other fixed income products. The technology they are developing aims to enable financial institutions to convert these real assets into "digital certificates" that can be efficiently traded on the Ethereum network, allowing for reliable management and settlement.
Automating Infrastructure: Building a modern settlement engine to address the traditional financial market's trading settlement, which typically takes one to two days (T+1 or T+2) and the drawbacks of time-limited trading. Etherealize is constructing a "settlement engine designed for institutional workflows," aiming for "automated execution and instant settlement without compromising compliance." By leveraging Ethereum's technology (especially its Layer 2 network), this engine can provide 24/7 uninterrupted, near-real-time settlement services, significantly improving capital efficiency for institutions.
Embedding Privacy: Customizable zero-knowledge environments. Privacy is the biggest concern for institutions adopting public blockchains. To address this, Etherealize states it is utilizing cutting-edge "zero-knowledge proof" (ZK) technology to build a "customizable privacy environment." This technology allows for the on-chain verification of transaction compliance without disclosing any transaction details (such as the parties involved, amounts, etc.). This may be aimed at addressing the core need for institutions to protect trade secrets while pursuing transaction efficiency.
In addition to the three product directions mentioned above, Etherealize has not been "idle" in product development. On one hand, they will produce in-depth research reports on the Ethereum ecosystem, such as the June report titled "The Bull Market Case for Ethereum," which compares ETH to digital oil driving the digital economy. They also publish articles and viewpoints suggesting that ETH will reach $80,000, laying the groundwork for cooperation with Wall Street.
On the other hand, Etherealize also represents the Ethereum ecosystem in communications with regulatory agencies. CEO Vivek Raman has testified on behalf of the Ethereum ecosystem regarding the "CLARITY Act" before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. Additionally, the company has proactively submitted written opinions to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) crypto task force, advocating for updated regulatory rules to recognize blockchain as a primary record-keeping system.
Overall, Etherealize seems to act as an ambassador for the Ethereum ecosystem, expanding cooperation opportunities with Wall Street while actively promoting various matters within the ecosystem.
The Blood-Generating Machine of the Ethereum Ecosystem?
Although Etherealize's achievements have yet to be fully realized, we may see some potential impacts Etherealize could have on the ecosystem based on its key ecological position and current operational direction.
The first aspect, and the most direct perspective, is to promote the continued expansion of RWA business within the Ethereum ecosystem. Although Ethereum is currently the leading public chain in the RWA field, the development of RWA is still in its early stages in terms of scale and narrative. It currently faces multiple obstacles, including a lack of asset diversity, insufficient on-chain asset liquidity, and high entry barriers. As a business representative with official backing from Ethereum, Etherealize has strong technical advantages and resource coordination capabilities, making it likely to introduce more traditional financial assets into the Ethereum ecosystem.
If this goal progresses as expected, it could bring more on-chain real assets to the Ethereum ecosystem while also promoting the use of Ethereum's native assets, enhancing the ecosystem's activity.
The second aspect is related to the current hot DAT narrative (crypto treasury strategies for listed companies). Like the RWA business, the main customer group is also listed companies. Therefore, for Etherealize, advancing crypto treasury strategies with listed companies is a natural progression. A clear example is that Etherealize is serving as a "DeFi Committee" member for ETHZilla, a listed company planning to transform into an Ethereum treasury reserve, providing professional advice on how to generate returns from ETH treasury assets.
The third aspect involves the deeper potential impact on the ecosystem. Once Etherealize makes actual progress in the aforementioned two businesses, it will indirectly promote the development of Ethereum L2, especially regarding traditional financial institutions' performance and privacy needs. Additionally, it will bring more institutional players into the currently most important business area of the Ethereum ecosystem, DeFi.
However, behind Etherealize's grand vision, there are also significant resistance and competitive pressures.
On one hand, in the existing market, institutions' views on crypto public chains are no longer limited to the Ethereum ecosystem. Several L1 chains, including Solana and Sui, have gained favor from traditional financial institutions, and they inherently possess better performance capabilities due to their technical characteristics.
On the other hand, there is a long path to progress between vision and realization. Since its establishment, Etherealize has developed for more than half a year but has yet to showcase any mature product prototypes or achieve cooperation with a large traditional financial institution. The current operational content remains limited to reports or opinion outputs, which somewhat mismatches the rapidly changing market.
However, larger goals often require more effort and time. For Etherealize, it is still in an extremely early stage, and whether it can successfully realize its vision and lead the Ethereum ecosystem to become the infrastructure of the Web3 era remains to be seen.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
