Bitcoin News Australia

gm Bankless Nation,
It was a brutal weekend for crypto prices as global markets lost hope for a quick solution to tariff woes.

Today's Issue ⬇️

1. ☀️ Need to Know: ETH Crash
   ETH prices fall to two-year lows.
2. 🗣️ Analysis: What is Etherealize?
   How they plan to sell institutions on ETH.
3. 🎧 Latest Pod: Open for Business
   Etherealize's co-founders talk mission.

p.s. Bankless Citizens: Complete the Bankless x Uniswap Labs survey and earn $10 USDC!

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1. ☹️ ETH Drops to Two-Year Lows Amid Crypto Selloff. Ethereum prices dropped to a two-year low of $1,415 on Monday.
2. ↘️ Strategy Discloses $6 Billion in Unrealized BTC Losses in Q1. Michael Saylor's epic bitcoin bet has had a rough start to the year as the asset has tumbled in value.
3. 🇵🇰 Binance Founder CZ Joins Pakistan Crypto Council. The former CEO will serve as a “strategic advisor” to the regulatory body.

	Crypto $2.52T	↗ 0.5%	↘ 8.0%
	BTC $79,638	↗ 1.2%	↘ 3.2%
	ETH $1,574	↘ 1.2%	↘ 13.4%

It’s been a massive month for bringing institutions onchain as stablecoin announcements pour in from every direction while the industry watches more clear-cut regulation begin decisively working its way through the Hill.

Big financial players are continuing to show up, leaning into tokenization and deploying products across all chains in a trend that shows no signs of stopping. But as more institutions show up, it’s becoming obvious that while Ethereum has the infrastructure, it has no one to pitch it.

That’s where Etherealize is coming in. It’s a new organization — part for-profit, part not — designed to take Ethereum’s neutral, decentralized infrastructure and sell it to the world’s largest institutions.

Today, on the podcast, we sat down with the team behind Etherealize to dive into what they’re building and why it matters. If listening is more your jam, dive right in. Otherwise, here’s our quick breakdown of what they’re doing — and why now might be the most important moment yet to make this pitch👇

1️⃣ What Is Etherealize?

At its core, Etherealize is a Delaware-based for-profit C-Corp (a nonprofit arm is on the way) with a succinct mission: to make Ethereum the default public blockchain for institutions, all while protecting its credibly neutral foundation.

Why is this necessary? Simply put, because Ethereum doesn’t do business development. While competitors establish policy arms and pitch their chains directly to banks and brokerages, Ethereum has remained grounded in a grassroots ethos: decentralized, open-source, community-led. But institutions don’t move on ideals alone. They need someone to explain Ethereum in their language, show them the roadmap, and help them integrate.

That’s where Etherealize comes in. To do that, they operate on a hybrid model of for-profit and non-profit initiatives:

• On the for-profit side, Etherealize runs both business development and product arms: helping institutions tokenize assets, navigate ETH-native DeFi, and launch compliant infrastructure like enterprise-grade L2s, while also building the dashboards, smart contracts, and off-chain systems needed to make it all work.
• On the non-profit side, they support Ethereum-aligned research, advocate for neutral public policy, and create feedback loops between institutional users and Ethereum’s core devs to ensure the protocol evolves with real-world input.

For those worried about ETH “selling out,” Etherealize isn’t here to change what Ethereum is. It’s here to make sure Ethereum gets a seat at the table — without compromising on what made it work in the first place.

Preview of Etherealize’s Dashboards

2️⃣ Who Makes Up Etherealize?

To help realize this mission, the Etherealize team brings a team of crypto heavyweights — people who understand both the boardroom and the protocol.

Etherealize is helmed by four co-founders: Vivek Raman, Danny Ryan, Grant Hummer, and Zack Obront.

• Raman brings a decade of experience on Wall Street to the role, trading everything from fixed income to leveraged loans. He brings the commercial edge and real-world finance experience needed to pitch Ethereum to skeptical institutions. To him, Ethereum is the obvious endgame for global settlement — the only question is getting decision-makers to see that too.

• Ryan is a former Ethereum Foundation (EF) researcher who helped lead the Merge — Ethereum’s upgrade from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. He’s now focused on bringing institutional insights into Ethereum’s roadmap, bridging the gap between long-term protocol development and short-term business needs.

• Hummer is a longtime Ethereum advocate who’s been in the ecosystem for ten years and holds close relationships with Vitalik and the EF, essentially all the parties needed to ensure a smooth and successful operation. At Etherealize, he acts as Chief Strategy Officer, working to position the firm squarely in the Ethereum ecosystem and make sure the firm pushes the culture and values that set the chain apart.

• Obront is a top-tier security researcher and product engineer with a reputation for designing technically sound, enterprise-ready systems. He leads Etherealize’s product and engineering efforts, ensuring institutions have ready-to-use infrastructure that is both scalable and faithful to Ethereum’s open-source roots.

Together, they form a team that’s credible in the eyes of institutions and trusted in the Ethereum ecosystem — a rare combination. Further, while not formally tied to the EF, the team’s deep connections with the main Ethereum organization — which also provided the founding grant money for Etherealize — may help provide a united front of the chain, which could do wonders in the long term.

3️⃣ Why Now?

Despite market turmoil, the timing for a coordinated, institutional push couldn’t be better. 

Ethereum is no longer an experiment — it’s infrastructure. After more than a decade online with zero downtime, it’s the most battle-tested public blockchain in the world. Institutions are starting to notice.

At the same time, regulatory conditions are improving. U.S. policy looks to be clearing the path for institutions to build and transact on public blockchain infrastructure, with many already doing it. What was once risky is now being viewed as necessary to properly compete — and Ethereum is already off to a strong start.

• Tokenized funds: BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have live tokenized products running on Ethereum rails with a myriad of other major names interested in deploying their own.
• Stablecoin adoption: Ethereum holds the lion’s share of stablecoin value, a vertical which itself is seeing an institutional rush that shows no signs of slowing.

Put simply, the door is wide open and institutions are moving onchain. Ethereum has the credibility, tooling, and decentralization to meet the moment. It just needs the right advocates to walk into the room and make the case — which is exactly what Etherealize aims to do.

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We’ve got the team behind Etherealize on the show today—Vivek Raman and Danny Ryan—to discuss their mission to onboard institutions, governments, and capital markets to Ethereum.

We explore how Ethereum is “open for business” with L2 scaling, modular architecture, and a maturing regulatory landscape. The Etherealize team breaks down their dual structure—a for-profit consulting and product arm alongside a nonprofit focused on R&D and policy—to drive institutional adoption.

Listen to the full episode👇