Is it Ethereum? BlackRock CEO Calls for ‘One Blockchain’ For Tokenization
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink used the World Economic Forum stage to argue that tokenization needs to move from pilot programs to market pipelines and suggested that a shared blockchain standard could reduce costs and “reduce corruption,” a framework that quickly reignited “which chain?” debate throughout crypto and especially within the Ethereum community.
Fink did not name the network. But the combination of BlackRock’s onchain footprint and its research environment makes Ethereum a natural candidate for the “one common blockchain” he refers to, even if he kept it vague.
Fink’s words, delivered in the language of infrastructure rather than crypto evangelism, lean heavily on the work case for digitized assets and interactive assembly lines.
“I think a move towards tokenization, decimalization is necessary. It’s amazing that we see two emerging countries leading the world in tokenization and digitization of their currency, which are Brazil and India. I think we need to move very quickly to do that.”
He then pushed the argument beyond payments and capital markets: “We would be reducing fees, we would be more democratic by reducing additional fees if we had all investments in the token space that could go from tokenized money market funds to stocks and bonds and back and forth.
The most provocative line was his call for a suspension and the trade-off he said came with it. “[If] we have one common blockchain, we can reduce corruption. So I would argue that, yes, we have more dependence on maybe one blockchain, which we can all talk about, but that being said, transactions are probably more scrutinized and more secure than ever. “
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told the World Economic Forum that he thinks a move toward tokenization and digitalization is necessary. We need to move quickly to do that. With one common blockchain, we can reduce corruption.
“One common blockchain” Larry Fink mentioned… pic.twitter.com/VhRvuwCx00
— Ethereum Daily (@ETH_Daily) January 22, 2026
Why Ethereum Is Going Up
In short, “one common blockchain” can be read as a common complaint of shared rails. Basically, BlackRock’s public-market crypto lineup and its tokenization activity are focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum.
On the ETF side, BlackRock’s flagship US products track bitcoin and ether – the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) – with ETHA launching in 2024 and now sitting in the middle of the company’s public view of Ethereum.
On the token side, BlackRock’s first token fund, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), issued on Ethereum via Securitize in March 2024, making Ethereum the initial issuance network for what has become one of the most watched institutional RWAs on the market.
Although BUIDL has been extended to many networks over time, the main point of Fink’s “common blockchain” framework is that Ethereum was BlackRock’s default starting point for public-chain issuance, a logical signal in a market where “standards” tend to follow anyone who already has deep liquidity, a wide area of integration, and more conservative colleagues.
A stronger telling came this week from BlackRock’s research than the Davos soundbites. In its thematic vision 2026, BlackRock clearly guides the concept of Ethereum as an infrastructure layer that collects “payment” as token scales. Another slide asks: “Could Ethereum represent a ‘toll street’ for tokenization?” and added that the adoption of a stablecoin may be the first representative of tokenization “in action,” with “blockchains like Ethereum” positioned to benefit.
In the same section, BlackRock cites RWA data “as of 1/5/2026” and notes that “in assets 65%+ tokens are in Ethereum,” emphasizing the network’s lead in today’s token stack.
At press time, ETH traded at $3,005.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
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