In a significant week for institutional crypto adoption, Wall Street giants are aggressively recruiting digital asset talent while the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, made its first formal move into decentralized finance (DeFi).
BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and CitiGroup are among the traditional finance (TradFi) players actively hiring candidates with cryptocurrency expertise, according to roles advertised on their websites. Recruitment specialists indicate this is just the beginning of a major push. "When I speak with CEOs from TradFi who are now building digital assets, they consistently say the same thing: Crypto will ultimately be integrated into TradFi, not exist separately," said Sam Wellalage, founder of recruitment agency WorkInCrypto.
This hiring spree coincides with BlackRock's landmark DeFi entry. On Wednesday, the asset manager announced it is listing its tokenized US Treasury fund, the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), on the Uniswap decentralized exchange. As part of the arrangement, BlackRock is purchasing an undisclosed amount of Uniswap's governance token, UNI. The collaboration is facilitated by tokenization firm Securitize. Initially, trading will be limited to a select group of eligible institutional investors and market makers.
"For the first time, institutions and whitelisted investors can access technology from a leader in the decentralized finance space to trade tokenized real-world assets like BUIDL with self-custody," stated Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo. BUIDL is the largest tokenized money market fund, with over $2.18 billion in total assets issued across multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Aptos, and Avalanche.
The institutional moves unfold against a challenging market backdrop. The total cryptocurrency market has lost an estimated $2 trillion, or half its value, since October. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) each saw only modest 2.5% gains last week, struggling to cross key psychological levels. Bitcoin ETFs experienced volatile flows, with $276 million in outflows on Wednesday and $410 million on Thursday, while Ether ETFs saw $129 million and $113 million in outflows on the same days, per Farside Investors data.
Analysts point to a supportive political climate as a key driver for Wall Street's renewed interest. US President Donald Trump's pro-crypto policies, including promises to make the country the "crypto capital of the world" and champion light-touch regulations, are credited with emboldening financial institutions. A slew of these firms are also preparing to attend the Trump family's World Liberty Forum crypto event next week.
In other major news, Binance completed converting its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) into Bitcoin, now holding 15,000 BTC, and a New York federal judge dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit against Uniswap, granting the protocol a procedural win.
