The Emerging Wave of Institutional Cryptocurrency Adoption
The next phase of institutional interest in cryptocurrencies is starting to take shape as established fintech companies embark on creating their own blockchains.
Financial services app Robinhood has recently revealed its plans to develop a layer-2 blockchain aimed at supporting tokenized stocks and real-world assets. Following suit, Stripe has announced Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain built in collaboration with Paradigm.
“That’s going to be the beginning of many others to come,” stated Annabelle Huang, co-founder of Altius Labs, in an interview. “The fintechs in Asia, Latin America, and other emerging markets that have looked into this for many years now are also getting ready to make more moves.”
Huang has witnessed the stages of crypto’s evolving relationship with Wall Street. After starting her career in trading foreign exchange and rates in New York, she took on the role of managing partner at Amber Group in Hong Kong, helping it grow into one of Asia’s largest crypto liquidity providers during the decentralized finance (DeFi) surge.
Challenges with Fintech-Led Blockchains
The new wave of fintech-enabled blockchains encounters the same performance challenges that have plagued the cryptocurrency space since its inception. Wall Street firms execute trades in microseconds, whereas blockchains still require seconds or, at best, milliseconds to process transactions. Huang referred to this as the industry’s “execution bottleneck,” emphasizing that it must be addressed before fintech-designed chains can support institutional capital effectively.
Since her departure from Amber Group, Huang has turned her attention toward resolving the execution bottleneck. At Altius Labs, she is developing a modular execution layer intended to integrate seamlessly with existing blockchains, enhancing throughput without the need for projects to completely overhaul their infrastructure.
“Our goal is to bring performance to any blockchain in a plug-and-play way,” Huang explained. “That way, a chain can upgrade its block execution time and throughput without having to redesign its entire architecture.”
She described her approach as a way to introduce modularity more deeply into the execution layer of the blockchain stack, which moves away from the typical practice of establishing sidechains or new layer 2s. By concentrating on the execution engine itself, Huang asserts that Web3 can bridge the performance gap with Web2, all while maintaining the decentralized characteristics of blockchains.
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Performance Gaps Highlighted by Wall Street
On June 27, 2025, Wall Street demonstrated the significant performance gap between modern blockchains and traditional financial systems. Nasdaq’s closing auction for the Russell index reconstitution — a moment when index funds adjust their holdings — matched 2.5 billion shares in merely 0.871 seconds. The exchange’s INET system is claimed to handle over 1 million order messages per second with sub-40-microsecond latency.
In comparison, blockchains still function at a fraction of that speed. For instance, Ethereum handles approximately 15 transactions per second with block times around 12 seconds. Solana, one of the fastest major networks, boasts a block time of roughly 400 milliseconds and can manage several thousand transactions per second in real-world scenarios. Even at their optimal performance, those figures fall short of the expectations that institutions have before committing significant trading activity on-chain.
Blockchains have seen scaling improvements, with Ethereum layer-2s diverting traffic to rollups, while Solana’s advanced validator client, Firedancer, aims to further close this performance gap.
Huang asserted that the industry should not anticipate more “Ethereum killers” or general-purpose blockchains appearing, as users tend to prefer consolidating around a few leading platforms instead of dispersing across numerous new chains.
“But within Ethereum, there was still the scalability issue, and that’s why people started spinning up new block spaces by setting up sidechains. And then L2s introduced additional fragmentation and difficult UI/UX because of it,” she noted.
Institutional Adoption and Strategic Shifts
Although the forthcoming wave of institutional adoption calls for enhancements on existing blockchain networks, Wall Street has not postponed its entry into the digital cryptocurrency landscape while waiting for these technical advancements. Many large investors have gained exposure indirectly through exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or corporate treasuries. Bitcoin (BTC) funds serve as accessible entry points, and companies like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) have positioned themselves as leveraged proxies for the asset.
However, this strategy hasn’t been successful for everyone. Throughout 2025, underperforming firms have clung to the “Bitcoin treasury” narrative as a last-resort tactic to generate investor interest. Some experienced brief stock price surges, only to see them quickly reverse. The shaky financial situations of certain companies have raised concerns regarding their stability during unfavorable market conditions.
Huang remarked that these pivots can be precarious, particularly for retail investors, since not all corporate Bitcoin strategies are designed similarly. She likened stock price spikes to token launches — an initial surge, followed by a return to “fair value.” However, she maintains that there will be continued demand for proxies such as ETFs and treasury strategies.
“Before MicroStrategy, there was Grayscale. Everyone assumed that once a Bitcoin ETF was approved, the Grayscale premium would vanish, along with the MicroStrategy trade. But if you look closer, investors still prefer MicroStrategy over an ETF for a few reasons,” Huang explained.
“First, because Michael Saylor has been accumulating for a longer period, their average cost basis is lower. Second, they’ve conducted several rounds of fundraising through convertible bonds, which introduces leverage. This makes MicroStrategy effectively a slightly leveraged investment in Bitcoin at a lower cost basis,” she added.
Huang further noted that, while ETF options exist for Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), those seeking altcoin exposure often resort to debt strategies instead.
Fintechs’ Role in Institutional Blockchain Commitment
Fintech companies such as Robinhood and Stripe are entering the next phase of institutional blockchain commitment. Rather than merely integrating crypto tickers into their trading applications, they are now investing in their own blockchains — a significant stride towards incorporating digital assets into their primary infrastructure.
The supporting infrastructure around them is evolving as well. Over-the-counter desks, once a discreet avenue for hedge funds to purchase Bitcoin off-exchange, are now repositioning themselves as regulated liquidity providers.
In practice, this translates to offering compliance, settlement, and reporting standards that institutional clients anticipate, advancing crypto closer to the accepted norms of Wall Street.
“What we’re seeing now — and I expect even more going forward — is a trend of institutions adopting stablecoins or even constructing their own blockchains for specific use cases,” Huang stated.
These are discussions she was holding with institutional players four years ago at Amber Group. Now, “they’re finally ready to act.”
