Note From Team
July marks another important step forward for Ethereum and ETH Hong Kong Hub as we continue to take initiatives building up Ethereum ecosystem in Asia, while working closely with key community participants.
EthSystems was launched to build confidentiality systems for institutional Ethereum adoption, providing privacy solutions that enable secure and compliant onchain participation, while Ethereum Institutional was launched to strengthen engagement between institutions and the Ethereum ecosystem, helping organizations better understand Ethereum’s infrastructure and adoption opportunities. Together, these developments mark another step in Ethereum’s evolution toward broader institutional adoption.
We are pleased to collaborate as Asia partner with Baillie Gifford Digital Assets and EthSystems, supporting their development on Ethereum and engagement with the Asia ecosystem. Baillie Gifford (“BG”), the $260bn UK asset manager known for backing technology and fintech companies, launched its Ethereum based tokenized yield fund ($BAGEY) in Hong Kong after receiving local regulatory green light; while EthSystems, led by former EF Head of Institutional Privacy and led APAC Enterprise Solutions, is committed to provide institutional grade privacy and compliance solutions to Ethereum builders.
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1、Institutional Onchain Finance Reaches Another Milestone in Hong Kong
Institutional onchain finance marked another milestone at the “Innovative Finance and Future of Wealth Management” event in Hong Kong on July 16th. Hosted by Baillie Gifford, ETH Hong Kong Hub, and SNZ, and co-hosted by Sharplink and Canopy, the private gathering brought together investors, financial institutions, and ecosystem leaders to discuss the evolution and adoption of tokenised asset infrastructure.
- Onchain Privacy and Security: Mo Jalil (CEO and Cofounder, EthSystems) talked about the financial institutions building sustainable on-chain strategies and tokenized RWA frameworks.
- Future of Wealth and Finance: Henry Chen (Partner and CBO, SNZ Holding & Blockunion), Theo Golden (Digital Assets, Baillie Gifford), Mu Chen (CEO, Canopy), Pravesh Rijal (EVP, Chief Data and AI Officer, Cross River Bank) navigating yield, margin, and institutional-grade finance on open public ledgers.
- Capital Markets and Wealth in Hong Kong: King Leung (Global Head of Financial Services, FinTech & Sustainability, InvestHK) talked about the stablecoin-enabled operating systems, next-gen fintech, and Asia, especially Hong Kong’s strategic role in global liquidity.
The headline milestone was the introduction of the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund ($BAGEY), a natively issued tokenised fund built on Ethereum, available to Hong Kong professional investors.
2、“Asia Onchain Finance Summit” Opens the Next Phase of Tokenized RWA and Agentic Finance
On July 17th, the Summit in Hong Kong brought together leaders from Ethereum institutional infrastructure, asset management, neo-banks, payment companies, RWA ecosystem players and the DeFi liquidity participants to examine how global finance is moving from blockchain experimentation towards real-world implementation.
Jointly initiated by Baillie Gifford, ETH Hong Kong Hub, Blockunion (business arm of SNZ Holding), and co-hosted by Sharplink, GSR, Lido Institutional, EthSystems, and featured by Wu Blockchain, the summit marked one of Hong Kong's most indepth and insightful institutional RWA gatherings to date, bringing together the full onchain finance value chain — from asset issuance and institutional infrastructure to liquidity, payments, distribution and end-user applications,under one roof.
- Institutional Infrastructure on Ethereum: featuring Mo Jalil on how privacy tools balance ledger transparency with corporate compliance.
- Joseph Chalom (CEO, Sharplink) gave a speech of the Investment Thesis for Ethereum, and addressed Ethereum’s institutional growth cycle and collaborative relationship between EF and ecosystem participants.
- Theo Golden announced the launch of the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund ($BAGEY), natively issued on Ethereum, with the token serving as the legal record of ownership and supporting native USDC subscriptions and T+0 redemptions.
- Onchain Banking and Fintech panel joined by Luca Cosentino (Head of Digital Assets, Cross River), Julie Luo (Director of Global Coverage, GSR), and Theo discussed how shared ledgers eliminate reconciliation, positioning institutional wallets as "the new branches" and outlining how institutional market-making connects tokenized RWA to broader onchain liquidity and unleash value.
- Onchain Payment Network and Yield: A dedicated fireside with Larry Ma (Head of Payment and CSO, SNZ Holding & Blockunion), Theo and Louis Liu (Founder and CEO, KUN Global) highlighted how integrating tokenized funds enhances cross-border treasury workflows and optimize idle capital for payment platforms, laying the groundwork for future agentic finance.
- Global Markets of RWA: Leaders from Sandy Jones (Investment Specialist and Director of Digital Assets, Baillie Gifford), Wu Chen (Founder and CEO, EX.IO), Darien Poh (CEO, Synthesys), and Joseph Choi (Head of Business Development, Undefined Labs) examined RWA distribution across key Asia markets, as the panelists represent compliant RWA distribution channel from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea.The panel concluded that tokenization has moved past mere issuance; true utility now hinges on embedding assets into permissionless DeFi workflows for collateralization, lending, and secondary trading.
EthSystems: Confidential Systems for Institutional Ethereum
EthSystems develops privacy and compliance infrastructure for institutional Ethereum — enabling confidential transactions, selective disclosure, private asset flows, and regulatory-aligned systems — connecting institutional requirements to production through open-source work and commercial engineering, including private bonds, confidential stablecoin transfers, private cross-chain settlements, privacy-preserving identity, and the Ethereum Privacy Map.
Ethlabs: Making Ethereum the Settlement Layer of the Global Economy
Ethlabs develops core protocol research and infrastructure focused on faster settlement/finality, mainnet capacity scaling, cross-chain interoperability, native asset issuance, and ETH’s monetary properties — preparing Ethereum to serve as the neutral, shared settlement layer for institutional activity, tokenized assets, stablecoins, and onchain commerce.
Helixbox Labs: Building Infrastructure at the Intersection of Crypto and AI
Helixbox Labs develops infrastructure across three core areas — blockchain data, AI intelligence, and solver services — connecting data, intelligence, and execution through products including Subscan, PubFi, and Helixbox Solvers.
July Ecosystem Highlights
1. EthSystems launched to build institutional privacy infrastructure
EthSystems was founded by members of the former Ethereum Foundation Institutional Privacy Task Force to build privacy and compliance infrastructure for regulated institutions.
The company launched with investment and support from SNZ, BitMine, Sharplink, Joe Lubin, and other major Ethereum-aligned supporters and investors.
Source: https://ethsystems.org/blog/introducing-ethsystems/
2. Robinhood Chain launched its public mainnet
Robinhood launched Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 built on the Arbitrum stack for tokenized assets, DeFi, and AI agents. It also expanded access to stock tokens for eligible users across more than 120 countries and regions.
Source:https://robinhood.com/us/en/newsroom/robinhood-accelerates-global-expansion-robinhood-chain-mainnet-stock-tokens-agentic-trading/
3. Ethereum Institutional officially launched
Ethereum Institutional launched as an independent nonprofit focused on supporting banks, asset managers, and enterprises entering the Ethereum ecosystem through research, education, partnerships, and events.
In the same month, the Ethereum Foundation published Ethereum for Governments and Institutions, presenting Ethereum as neutral public infrastructure for institutional and public-sector use.
Source: https://blog.ethereum.org/2026/07/01/ethereum-for-institutions
4. Aave disclosed the security framework behind Aave V4
Aave V4 underwent extensive manual auditing, formal verification, invariant testing, fuzzing, and a public security competition.
The process shows how formal verification and continuous security testing are becoming integrated into the development of major DeFi protocols.
Source: https://aave.com/blog/aave-v4-security-by-design
5. DeFi expanded into payments and AI-agent use cases
Aave, MetaMask, and Mastercard connected yield-bearing assets with everyday payments, allowing users to keep earning yield until funds are spent.
Sources: https://aave.com/blog/aave-metamask-mastercard
Uniswap also released tools that allow AI agents to execute automated trading strategies under predefined permission and risk controls.
Sources: https://blog.uniswap.org/introducing-uniswap-trading-tools
6. Development of the Glamsterdam upgrade continued
Ethereum core developers continued testing Glamsterdam across development networks, including work on ePBS, client readiness, and Builder Execution Requests.
Early planning also began for Hegotá, the upgrade expected to follow Glamsterdam.
Related discussion: https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/2152
July Summary
July showed Ethereum continuing its transition from infrastructure maturity toward broader institutional and application adoption.
Robinhood Chain, Ethereum Institutional, and EthSystems contributed to Ethereum’s institutional stack, while Aztec, Aave, and the Ethereum Foundation advanced privacy, security, and AI-related infrastructure.
Overall, the ecosystem continues developing a clearer division of responsibilities across Layer 2 networks, institutional organizations, privacy teams, security researchers, and application protocols.
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