BlackRock backs Ethereum gatekeeping tokenization despite market share under threat

BlackRock’s 2026 Thematic Outlook puts Ethereum at the center of the tokenization argument, asking whether the network will function as a “toll road.”

“More than 65% of tokenized assets are on Ethereum,” BlackRock said.

The framing pushes Ethereum into an infrastructure role rather than a directional call on ETH. The “toll road” model depends on where issuance, settlement, and toll payments occur as real-world assets and tokenized cash move on-chain.

BlackRock cited Coin Metrics and Allium via its Visa Onchain Analytics dashboard, noting that stablecoin trading volumes are adjusted to “eliminate inorganic activity (such as bots).”

This caveat narrows the metrics investors may rely on when converting tokenization “activity” into economic throughput.

Ethereum shares are a moving target

A market check in late January shows why the “over 65%” figure should be treated as current.

Ethereum’s tokenized RWA market share is 59.84%, with a total value of approximately $12.8 billion as of January 22nd, according to the RWA.xyz directory view.

The RWA.xyz network view also shows Ethereum leading by value, with a total value of $13,433,02,447 (excluding stablecoins), and the timestamp in the table is around January 21st.

There is room for share drift between these measurements and BlackRock’s Jan. 5 numbers.

This variation can occur as issuance expands to other chains or reporting windows change.

For ETH holders, the question looking forward is less about whether financial institutions will tokenize their assets and more about whether tokenization will route fee-paying settlements into a path involving ETH.

BlackRock’s case leans toward Ethereum as the base layer for tokenized assets. However, the role of the base layer may become diluted if execution moves to rollups, or if tokenized funds are spread across multiple L1s where users do not touch ETH.

Roll-ups and toll passes complicate the “toll road” theory

L2BEAT’s rollup overview shows a large pool of value that has already been “captured” 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 labeled as Stage 1.

This architecture allows Ethereum to maintain its payment role while transitioning where users pay their daily fees.

The economics of performing a rollup and fee assets vary by design, and even though Ethereum remains the underlying security layer, the differences are important for earning fees.

Tokenized cash has the potential to become a major throughput driver for tokenized portfolios and comes with clearer scenario calculations.

Citi’s stablecoin report models issuance in 2030 at $1.9 trillion in the base case and $4.0 trillion in the bull case.

These balances combined with the 50x velocity assumption modeled approximately $100 trillion and $200 trillion of trading activity, respectively.

The mechanistic implication is that even small changes in market share in a payment network can become significant if activity scales to that level.

Measurement methodologies are central when investors seek to infer fee generation from raw on-chain flows.

Stablecoin “noise”, multi-chain products, and the single ledger debate

Visa claimed that the amount of stablecoin transfers contained “noise.”

As an example, Visa said that after removing inorganic activity, stablecoin trading volume in the past 30 days decreased from $3.9 trillion to $817.5 billion.

BlackRock’s tokenization slide mentions the same concept of bot removal, tying the story to a more narrowly defined economic use.

If a “toll road” is meant to be monetized through payments, then the investable variable is not headline transfer volume, but organic payment demand that cannot be replicated cheaply elsewhere.

Multi-chain distribution is already showing up in institutional product design, complicating the linear “tokenization equals ETH demand” argument.

BlackRock’s tokenized fund BUIDL is available on seven blockchains, with wormholes enabling cross-chain interoperability.

This supports a path for non-Ethereum chains to survive as a distribution and venue-specific utility layer, even if Ethereum maintains the lead in issuance and payment reliability.

Another element of the debate focuses on whether institutional tokenization will end up with one common ledger.

The theme was popularized during Davos Week. on social media through posts featuring Comment from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

A World Economic Forum document published this month supports a wide range of claims about the benefits of tokenization, including themes such as fragmentation and faster payments.

However, the WEF stopped short of validating the “single blockchain” phrase in its 2026 digital asset outlook and tokenization explanatory video.

For Ethereum’s decentralization theory, an investable tension is whether the base layer can remain neutral as tokenization becomes tied to large-scale issuers and regulated venues.

Claims of “transparency” depend on credible resistance to unilateral change and the finality of settlements inherited by downstream classes.

Now, L2BEAT’s staged framework and value-secured data show that rollups are scaling up under Ethereum’s security umbrella, while BUIDL’s multi-chain rollout shows that major issuers are also mitigating platform concentration risks.

BlackRock’s “toll road” slide set the market share metric at over 65%.

The RWA dashboard and multi-chain product release in late January showed that the near-term battleground is measuring overall RWA sector share, payment locations, and organic usage.

The same dynamics are likely to shape how investors interpret the growth of tokenized government bonds and other on-chain issuance categories.