According to Deep Tide TechFlow, on February 23, The Block reported that earlier this month, BlackRock, Citadel Securities, and Apollo Global Management successively disclosed plans to purchase DeFi governance tokens. BlackRock has tokenized its treasury bond fund BUIDL on-chain via UniswapX and bought UNI tokens; Citadel Securities supports the launch of the 'Zero' blockchain under LayerZero and acquires ZRO tokens; Apollo or its affiliates have reached an agreement with Morpho to acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens over 48 months, accounting for approximately 9% of the total supply.
Multiple investors told The Block that the motivation for the aforementioned institutions to buy governance tokens is not to allocate them in a portfolio but to secure the rights to use the infrastructure. CoinFund founder Jake Brukhman characterized this as 'vendor lock-in, rather than asset allocation,' meaning that the token holdings are directly tied to the infrastructure these institutions plan to use. Lex Sokolin, co-founder of Generative Ventures, pointed out that traditional financial institutions are 'factories' and the crypto market is their 'storefront' for selling tokenized products, with this move being more about brand endorsement than a fundamental change in market dynamics.
Many investors believe that the key factors driving this round of institutional entry include: the repeal of SAB 121 accounting standards in early 2025, the SEC's withdrawal of investigations into Uniswap, Coinbase, and Aave, the establishment of a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins (GENIUS Act), and the SEC's 'Project Crypto' designating most governance tokens as non-securities. The arrival of institutional funds has not significantly driven up the prices of DeFi tokens, and investors generally believe that establishing a clear value capture mechanism between tokens and protocol cash flows, pushing for the approval of DeFi ETFs, and the implementation of the (CLARITY Act) are key catalysts for driving future market trends.
In future predictions, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan have been mentioned by multiple investors as the next potential entrants, with key agreements focused on blue-chip projects related to stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and trading infrastructure.
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