Why Wall Street can use Ethereum without betting on ETH

Wall Street can use tokenized assets without choosing ETH to back its trades. That distinction matters to Vitalik Buterin’s November 8 case for holding ETH: BlackRock’s dollar fund BUIDL lets eligible institutions post yield-bearing fund tokens as collateral instead.Writing as @VitalikButerin, he argued that ETH’s monetary properties deserve more attention than valuation through fee burn. BUIDL’s established collateral framework with OKX and Standard Chartered describes a route for eligible clients to support trading with yield-bearing fund claims rather than ETH.@VitalikButerin explicitly supported keeping EIP-1559 and its burn. His argument shifts the emphasis of ETH’s value proposition.In a follow-up post, @VitalikButerin linked the usefulness of holding ETH to assets issued natively on Ethereum’s base layer. More assets could give holders more opportunities to convert between ETH and other instruments or use ETH as collateral.BUIDL gives institutions a dollar collateral routeThe institutional comparison predates the November thread. In an April 28, 2026 announcement, Standard Chartered described a framework allowing OKX VIP and institutional clients to post BUIDL in off-exchang...