TradFi Deepens Ethereum Push Despite Ether’s Sluggish Price

Ethereum has long supported stablecoins, DeFi and tokenized assets, making it a leading platform for institutional onchain finance because of its liquidity and security track record. By February 2026, JPMorgan Asset Management, Citi, Deutsche Bank and BlackRock had all launched related projects. Ethereum, including Layer 2 networks, accounted for 65% of total value locked, with about $52.4 billion on the platform.

ETH traded at about $1,900 in February 2026, down 36% year to date and 60% from its 2025 high. Monthly trading volume on Ethereum decentralized exchanges fell to $56.5 billion from $128.5 billion in August 2025. On June 13, Etherealize co-founder Vivek Raman said Wall Street had moved toward formal deployment, while Vitalik Buterin was also advancing base-layer scaling and ZK-EVM development.