Ethereum Is Becoming What Treasuries Are to Traditional Finance: Research

“Stablecoins are spreading the dollar faster than any financial tech in history,” said Electric Capital General Partner Maria Shen on Tuesday.

“Ethereum is becoming the financial backbone,” she added, referencing a newly published research report on stablecoin demand for Ethereum’s tenth birthday.

For the first time, anyone across the globe can hold US dollars via stablecoins, which will drive demand, in turn benefiting Ethereum.

The Primary Settlement Layer

Despite talk of “de-dollarization,” the global demand for US dollars is booming, especially via stablecoins, which now exceed $260 billion in total market capitalization.

This is unlocking dollar access for billions, especially in emerging markets. More than four billion people and millions of businesses are actively seeking dollar access through stablecoins, the researchers noted.

Stablecoins are spreading the dollar faster than any financial tech in history.

And Ethereum is becoming the financial backbone.

For Ethereum’s 10th birthday, we’re publishing our updated @ElectricCapital ETH thesis:

Remaking the Case for ETH

1/ pic.twitter.com/Rr9mSrK0GS

— mariaa.eth (@MariaShen) July 8, 2025

However, this burgeoning market of new dollar holders wants more than just digital cash. They need yields, investment opportunities, and financial services, and traditional finance, such as banks, cannot serve this massive new market due to regulatory, financial, geofencing, and infrastructure constraints.

“Ethereum is uniquely positioned to host the global financial infrastructure for this new digital dollar economy, and ETH stands to benefit directly from this growth.”

Ethereum is already primed for this position because it is globally accessible, institution-grade secure, and resistant to government interference.

Additionally, Ethereum is already the primary settlement layer, underpinning the largest on-chain economy with more than $140 billion in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets and $60 billion in DeFi.

As a result, Ethereum will become to the on-chain dollar economy what Treasuries and gold are to traditional finance – a reserve and trust anchor.

As stablecoin usage expands, a flywheel effect will be generated as more ETH is needed as collateral for DeFi and real-world finance, more ETH is staked, securing the network and reducing supply, and more institutional capital flows in, as the asset offers regulatory clarity and composability.

No Real Competition

There is no real competition at the moment because Bitcoin lacks programmability and adoption as a financial platform, and other blockchains lack Ethereum’s security, decentralization, and institutional credibility, they said.

Additionally, traditional finance is geographically and regulatorily siloed and unable to serve the global demand unlocked by stablecoins. Anyone who has tried to open a bank account in a particular country without a physical address there would concur.

“We’ve believed in programmable money since 2018. We made the institutional case for Bitcoin at our founding. Now we’re doing the same for Ethereum,” said Shen in conclusion.