Quant Analyst Says Legacy Financial Institutions Are Eyeing One Ethereum-Dominated Sector – Here’s Why

The traditional finance sector will dip its toes into decentralized finance (DeFi) in the next few months, predicts Ki Young Ju, chief executive of on-chain insights platform CryptoQuant.

Young Ju tells his 304,800 Twitter followers that stablecoins are leading the way in terms of institutional adoption.

As evidence, he points to U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who told Congress in January that a central bank digital currency (CBDC) could coexist with stablecoins.

Young Ju also also notes that the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, led $400 million funding round for Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), earlier this year.

Explains the chief executive,

“As more USD-stablecoins usage [strengthens] the dollar’s supremacy, TradFi institutions are allowed to invest in stablecoin projects.

But in order to get more transaction volume, stablecoins need more strong use cases from DeFi. Investing in DeFi would be their next goal.”

Young Ju isn’t the first crypto professional to suggest stablecoins could drive the adoption of other digital assets: Earlier this month, Fidelity’s director of global macro Jurrien Timmer argued that favorable stablecoin regulation could act as catalyst for Bitcoin (BTC) adoption.

“If stablecoins are regulated and deemed safe and we don’t have the headlines about stables that we had not too long ago and the space is legitimized, then I think maybe investors will have more confidence that the network effect, the adoption curve of Bitcoin, which has followed a number of historical escrows whether it’s internet usage or mobile phones.

As the space becomes legitimized and gains more scale, I think more and more investors might start to feel comfortable that the promise of this expanding adoption curve can actually be fulfilled.”