Ethereum Takes Center Stage: GENIUS Act Boosts Institutional Interest in Tokenized Finance

As the cryptocurrency market continues to buzz with activity, the U.S. Senate's passage of the GENIUS Act with bipartisan support has sparked excitement around Ethereum. Vivek Raman, founder of Etherealize, has been making the rounds on Wall Street to explain why ETH is suddenly at the center of institutional finance. Ethereum, almost a decade old, is finally starting to gain the attention of Wall Street. Raman leads the efforts to educate Wall Street on ETH as neutral collateral and to help institutions tokenize assets and build on Ethereum. He believes that Ethereum’s core value proposition, its role as the settlement and collateral layer behind stablecoins and tokenized assets, is finally resonating with institutional investors. According to Raman, the turning point for Ethereum was regulatory clarity. The GENIUS Act and broader U.S. policy momentum have paved the way for Ethereum’s potential to be fully realized. Despite the headlines around the ETH ETF, Raman says the real unlock for Ethereum came from regulatory clarity, not a ticker symbol. Meanwhile, VanEck's proposed Solana Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) has been listed on the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) website under the ticker symbol VSOL, a procedural step that typically signals readiness for electronic clearing and settlement. This comes amid growing institutional interest in Solana, following the success of spot bitcoin and ether ETFs. However, Canada has beaten the U.S. in the race to get listed with four Canadian issuers launching their Solana ETFs in April. OKX has also continued its European expansion with regulated launches in Germany and Poland, marking a strategic expansion into two of Europe’s most active digital asset markets. The company now offers spot trading, staking, automated trading bots, and over 60 crypto-Euro pairs to users in both countries, supported by localized platforms with Euro onramps. Market movements show that Bitcoin briefly dipped to $103,396 amid Israel-Iran tensions before rebounding on continued institutional ETF buying, with low exchange reserves amplifying volatility in a tight trading channel between $103,405 and $107,780. Ethereum traded within a wide range over 24 hours amid Middle East tensions, showing resilience by rebounding from a $2,460 support zone with strong volume, though it continues to face stiff resistance near $2,800. Gold remains rangebound below $3,400 as traders await Fed guidance, with geopolitical tensions, U.S. deficit concerns, and currency debasement risks supporting its long-term uptrend. The Nikkei 225 slipped 0.15% on Wednesday as escalating Israel-Iran tensions and reports of Donald Trump weighing a military strike on Iran weighed on investor sentiment. The S&P 500 closed down 0.84% at 5,982.72 on Tuesday as the Israel-Iran conflict entered its fifth day.