BlackRock’s 2026 Thematic Outlook places Ethereum at the center of its tokenization thesis, asking whether the network could serve as a “toll road.”
BlackRock said that “over 65% of tokenized assets are on Ethereum.”
The framing pushes Ethereum into an infrastructure role rather than a directional call to ETH. A “toll road” model depends on where the issuance, settlement, and payment of fees take place as real-world assets and tokenized cash move across the chain.
BlackRock noted that stablecoin trading volume is adjusted to “eliminate inorganic activity (e.g. bots),” citing Coin Metrics and Allium via the Visa Onchain Analytics dashboard.
This caveat reduces the metrics investors can rely on to translate tokenization “activity” into economic throughput.
Ethereum Share Is a Moving Target
A market analysis carried out at the end of January shows why the “65% and above” figure should be treated as a one-time figure.
The directory view from RWA.xyz places Ethereum’s tokenized RWA market share at 59.84%, with a total value of approximately $12.8 billion upon recovery on January 22.
RWA.xyz’s network view also shows Ethereum leading in terms of value, including a total value (excluding stablecoins) of $13,433,002,447, with the chart timestamped around January 21.
The gap between these figures and the BlackRock figure of January 5 leaves room for a drift in stocks.
This drift may occur as the show expands to other channels and reporting windows change.
| Data point | Ethereum value / share | Timestamp in source | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| BlackRock Tokenization Slide Snapshot | “65% +” assets tokenized on Ethereum | As of 01/05/2026 | BlackRock PDF (p. 17) |
| Overview of the RWA.xyz directory | ~ Total value of $12.8 billion, 59.84% market share | Retrieved 01/22/2026 | Directory RWA.xyz |
| Network table RWA.xyz | $13,433,002,447 (excluding stablecoins) | The table shows “as of” 01/22/2026, pack records as of 01/21/2026 | RWA Networks.xyz |
For ETH holders, the forward-looking question is less whether institutions tokenize assets than whether tokenization routes paid settlement via ETH-bearing paths.
BlackRock’s thesis relies on Ethereum as a base layer for tokenized assets. Yet the role of the base layer may be diluted if execution shifts to rollups or if tokenized funds are distributed across multiple L1s where users do not touch ETH.
Accumulations and tariff paths complicate the “toll road” thesis
L2BEAT’s rollup summary shows large pools of value already “secured” by major Ethereum rollups.
Arbitrum One is listed at $17.52 billion, Base at $12.94 billion, and OP Mainnet at $2.33 billion, each of which qualifies as Stage 1.
This architecture can preserve Ethereum’s settlement role while changing where users pay fees on a daily basis.
The economics of running rollup and fee assets vary by design, and this difference is important for fee capture even though Ethereum remains the underlying security layer.
Tokenized cash can become a major throughput driver in tokenization wallets, and it comes with clearer mathematical scenarios.
Citi’s stablecoin report modeled emissions for 2030 at $1.9 trillion in a base case and $4.0 trillion in a bull case.
It paired these balances with a 50x velocity assumption to model approximately $100 trillion and $200 trillion in transaction activity, respectively.
The mechanistic implication is that even modest changes in market share in colonization networks can matter if activity reaches these levels.
The measurement methodology becomes central if investors attempt to infer fee generation from raw on-chain flows.
Stablecoin “noise”, multi-chain products and the single ledger debate
Visa argued that stablecoin transfer volumes contain “noise.”
In one example, Visa said stablecoin volume over the past 30 days increased from $3.9 trillion to $817.5 billion after removing inorganic activity.
BlackRock’s tokenization slide references the same concept of removing bots, tying its narrative to a narrower definition of economic use.
If the “toll road” is meant to be monetized through settlement, the investment variable is the organic demand for settlement that cannot be cheaply replicated elsewhere, not the overall number of transfers.
Multi-chain distribution is already showing up in institutional product design, complicating any linear “tokenization equals ETH demand” argument.
BlackRock’s tokenized fund, BUIDL, is available on seven blockchains, with cross-chain interoperability enabled by Wormhole.
This supports a survival path for non-Ethereum chains as location-specific distribution and utility layers, even if Ethereum maintains a lead in terms of issuance value or settlement credibility.
A separate strand of the debate has focused on whether institutional tokenization results in a common ledger.
During Davos week, this theme circulated on social networks through publications featuring remarks from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
World Economic Forum papers released this month support broader claims about the benefits of tokenization, including sharding and faster settlement themes.
However, the WEF fails to validate this “one blockchain” textual language in its Digital Asset Outlook for 2026 and its explainer video on tokenization.
For Ethereum’s decentralization thesis, the investment tension is whether a base layer can remain neutral as tokenization becomes tied to large issuers and regulated venues.
Demands for “transparency” depend on credible resistance to unilateral change and the finality of the settlement inherited by downstream layers.
Today, L2BEAT’s stage framework and secure data show that rollups scale under Ethereum’s security umbrella, while BUIDL’s multi-chain deployment shows that top issuers also reduce the platform’s concentration risk.
BlackRock’s “toll road” slide set a dated market share marker at over 65%.
Late January RWA dashboards and multi-chain product releases showed that the near-term battleground is share, location and organic usage measurement across the RWA sector.
This same dynamic is likely to shape how investors interpret the growth of tokenized Treasuries and other categories of on-chain issuance.
