- VanEck CEO, Jan van Eck, has told Fox News that ETH is the “Wall Street token” and that it underpins emerging stablecoin-based payments rails.
- Every financial institution will need either Ethereum or EVM-compatible blockchain tech in the next 12 months to not miss out on the benefits of this stablecoin boom, van Eck said.
- Since 2020 the stablecoin market cap has exploded from under US$5 billion to over US$280 billion today.
VanEck CEO, Jan van Eck, believes Ethereum could underpin a new blockchain-powered payments system, dubbing the smart-contract platform’s native token ETH the “Wall Street token” in an interview with Fox News aired August 27.
Speaking on Fox’s The Claman Countdown, Van Eck said the emergence of stablecoins as an important new way to store and transfer value is driving banks and other financial institutions to adopt Ethereum.
It’s [ETH] very much what I call the Wall Street token. And what I mean by that is, if you think that because of stablecoins now every bank and every financial services company has to have a way of taking in stablecoins.
“If I wanna send you stablecoins your bank has to figure it out or you will find some other institution to do that,” he said.
The stablecoin market has grown enormously over the past few years. Its market cap was under US$5 billion (AU$7.6b) by 2020 and now sits at over US$280 billion (AU$429b), according to data from DeFi Llama.
This growth has been driven by a range of factors including the increasing maturity of blockchain technology, improved access through better fiat on- and off-ramps and the emergence of a crypto friendly regulatory environment in the US.
Related: VanEck: Stablecoin Boom Fuels M&A Frenzy for Payments Bridge Firms
TradFi Needs to Adopt Blockchain Within 12 Months, Says van Eck
Van Eck sees this growth in stablecoins continuing pace, ultimately resulting in full-scale adoption of stablecoin-based payments rails over the next year.
“Companies have to employ technology to enable stablecoin usage over the next 12 months,” he said. He added, “no financial services company will say ‘No that’s ok, don’t send me that digital dollar’ — they’re getting digital dollars in other formats, they’re gonna want these digital dollars. So they have to adopt the technology.”
It’s going to be Ethereum or something that uses Ethereum’s methodology, which is called EVM.
Jan van Eck, VanEck CEO Related: Aave Labs Unveils Horizon to Bring Stablecoin Borrowing Backed by Tokenised Treasuries
Of course, the inclusion of EVM-compatible chains potentially being used to facilitate van Eck’s predicted stablecoin payments system opens the field to many networks beyond Ethereum — most smart-contract layer-1s now offer some form of EVM-compatibility.
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