Ethereum’s core narrative over the past decade has moved from ICOs to DeFi, NFTs, and then Layer 2. By 2026, another term is moving quickly into the center of the Ethereum conversation: institutions.
That shift is visible at ETHTaipei 2026, which will take place on Sept. 13-14. This year’s event is split into two parts, a Cryptonative Day and an Institution Day. The Sept. 14 agenda is being set aside for banks and financial institutions, with sessions focused on custody, real-world assets, institutional-grade applications, and closed-door discussions.
ETHTaipei sets aside a dedicated day for institutions
The list of participants is no longer limited to the usual Ethereum developer crowd. This year’s Institution Day includes Cathay Financial Holdings, Taishin Shin Kong Financial Holding, the Taiwan Financial Services Roundtable, and professional services firms KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, and EY. Crypto financial infrastructure participants include BitGo, Zodia, Canton, BSOS, XREX, and the Ethereum Foundation.
Many supporters of Ethereum argue that its security and decentralization make it a natural choice for bringing RWA on-chain. Still, Circle’s latest move has opened a new line of debate at exactly the moment institutional adoption is becoming a more visible theme.
Why Circle did not choose an Ethereum L2
Circle’s stablecoin-focused public blockchain, Arc, is being launched as an EVM-compatible Layer 1 and is scheduled to go live on Sept. 16. It is not being introduced as an Ethereum Layer 2.
Anton Cheng, Morpho APAC Solutions Engineer and founder of Monarch, said recently that after speaking with members of Circle’s team, he realized Arc was not an Ethereum L2 but an independent L1. That led him to a broader question. In his view, teams connected to the Ethereum Foundation and the wider Ethereum institutional effort should speak directly with Circle to understand why the company ultimately decided to build its own Layer 1.
Cheng said, 「Stablecoins (and liquidity) are the base layer for everything.」 Before talking about bringing applications, enterprises, banks, or large institutions into Ethereum, he said Ethereum may first need to answer a more basic question: whether stablecoin issuers themselves actually see Ethereum as the right financial infrastructure for their needs.
He also said that after speaking with Circle’s team, what surprised him was that their feeling toward Ethereum did not seem to match the sense of commitment he had previously associated with Ethereum’s vision.
Circle’s public explanation for Arc
Circle has already explained its reasoning in public. When introducing Arc, the company said that through years of working with payment service providers, financial institutions, and enterprises, it repeatedly encountered several requirements: gas costs needed to be predictable; enterprises did not want to hold volatile tokens to pay fees; sensitive financial data could not all be exposed publicly; and enterprises needed clear operational support.
Circle’s conclusion was that existing blockchains were not designed from the outset for stablecoin finance.
Arc was built around that premise. According to Circle, the chain allows gas to be paid directly in USDC, uses dollar-denominated fees, offers sub-second deterministic finality, and supports selective privacy. It also incorporates an institutional-grade FX Engine into the infrastructure. Circle has positioned Arc as a financial Layer 1 capable of supporting tokenized stocks, commodities, real estate, securities, U.S. Treasuries, and structured products.
Arc is being positioned as a coordination layer for issuance and liquidity
Circle has also described Arc this year as a coordination layer for asset issuance and liquidity. Assets can be issued on Arc and then distributed across more than 20 chains through CCTP, while liquidity can move across ecosystems based on demand.
As ETHTaipei introduces its first Institution Day and RWA becomes a bigger conference theme, Circle’s decision to build an independent financial L1 instead of using an Ethereum L2 is giving the Ethereum community a fresh reason to examine what institutional infrastructure actually requires.