TechFlow News reports that on February 23, according to The Block, earlier this month BlackRock, Citadel Securities, and Apollo Global Management each disclosed plans to acquire DeFi governance tokens. BlackRock tokenized its Treasury bond fund BUIDL onto the blockchain via UniswapX and purchased UNI tokens; Citadel Securities supported the launch of LayerZero’s “Zero” blockchain and acquired ZRO tokens; and Apollo—or an affiliated entity—entered into an agreement with Morpho to acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens over 48 months, representing approximately 9% of the total supply.
Multiple investors told The Block that these institutions’ motivations for purchasing governance tokens are not portfolio allocation but rather securing access to underlying infrastructure. Jake Brukhman, founder of CoinFund, characterized this as “vendor lock-in, not asset allocation”—meaning token holdings are directly tied to the infrastructure these institutions plan to use. Lex Sokolin, co-founder of Generative Ventures, noted that traditional financial institutions are “factories,” while crypto markets serve as their “retail stores” for selling tokenized products—this move is more about brand endorsement than a fundamental shift in market structure.
Investors identified several key drivers behind this wave of institutional participation: the repeal of accounting standard SAB 121 at the beginning of 2025; the SEC’s successive dismissals of investigations into Uniswap, Coinbase, and Aave; the GENIUS Act establishing a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins; and the SEC’s “Project Crypto,” which classified most governance tokens as non-securities. Despite the influx of institutional capital, DeFi token prices have not seen significant upward movement. Investors widely believe that the critical catalysts for future momentum will be establishing clear value-capture mechanisms linking tokens to protocol cash flows, securing approval for DeFi ETFs, and enacting the CLARITY Act.
Looking ahead, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase were cited by multiple investors as the next potential entrants, with focus expected on blue-chip protocols related to stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and trading infrastructure.
