Betting on Wall Street preferred blockchain RWA, Peter Thiel heavily invests in Ethereum.

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is betting on Ethereum to become the preferred platform for Wall Street RWA, and his investment company has heavily invested in Ethereum-related assets. According to WSJ on Friday, benefiting from dovish remarks by Fed Chairman Powell, the price of Ethereum surged by 15% on Friday, reaching a new historic high after four years. Since hitting a low point in April, the price of Ethereum has risen by over 250%. One of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capitalists, Peter Thiel, has made significant profits in this bull market. His venture capital firm Founders Fund has deeply participated in this market by investing in several companies that use Ethereum as a treasury reserve asset: - Thiel's Founders Fund holds a 7.5% stake in ETHZilla company, which recently transformed from a biotech company to a company focused on purchasing Ethereum investment tools. - Thiel also controls a 9.1% stake in Bitmine, which recently raised $250 million to purchase Ethereum. Since the end of June, the stock price has risen by over 1000%, and the current market value is $9.2 billion. Thiel's investment logic in Ethereum lies in the potential for Ethereum to become an alternative channel for clearing and settling USD, stocks, and other assets outside the traditional financial system, which would benefit its native token significantly due to increased network activity. Wall Street is betting on Ethereum to become the preferred blockchain for RWAs Unlike Bitcoin, which has a limited supply and is primarily used as a digital value storage tool, Ethereum's supply has no hard cap and is increasingly being used for transactions on the Ethereum platform. Ethereum is an open-source platform where developers can build and operate applications for trading and lending digital currencies. It was previously mentioned by WSJ that real-world assets (RWA) are being transformed into digitized tokens on the blockchain through blockchain technology, connecting traditional financial assets with physical assets (such as US bonds, real estate, green energy), creating a massive market that is expected to reach $16 trillion by 2030. Thiel believes that if Ethereum becomes an alternative solution for traditional settlement channels like USD and stocks, its native token will benefit from the growing activity on the platform. This vision is not just a dream, as Wall Street giants have started to make moves on Ethereum: - Asset management giants BlackRock and Franklin Templeton launched tokenized money market funds on the Ethereum network. - Apollo Global Management also issued a diversified credit securitization fund through Ethereum. According to data, the total transaction activity on Ethereum has exceeded $1.2 trillion so far this year, showing significant growth compared to $960 billion during the same period last year. Cryptocurrency data provider Nansen pointed out that these transactions mainly involve stablecoins like Tether and USDC pegged to USD, as well as deposit and withdrawal activities on major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase. Investment risks still exist Despite the impressive activity data on Ethereum, investors still need to be cautious about the risks involved. Firstly, whether Ethereum can be widely adopted by the financial industry is still uncertain. Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon have launched tokenized money market funds on their own built private blockchains, indicating that Ethereum will face fierce competition from traditional financial giants building their platforms. Secondly, some activities on the network may not be from genuine financial demand. According to Nansen's analysis, some transaction activities seem to be related to spam or malicious phishing attacks, casting a shadow over the authenticity of network data. Lastly, the steep rise in Ethereum prices may simply be a reflection of speculative activities. Research analyst Nicolai Sndergaard from Nansen stated: At least for now, the idea of 'Wall Street rebuilding its financial infrastructure on Ethereum' seems more like a marketing slogan to attract people to buy concept stocks of Ethereum. He believes that the price surge may be more about speculators seeking an alternative to Bitcoin, rather than a genuine recognition of Ethereum's future. This article was originally published on "WSJ" by Yi Long Bao and edited by Jia Yin Liu.