In 2025, a pivotal yr for digital markets, Arbitrum adoption emerged as a key driver of the convergence between conventional finance and onchain infrastructure.
Arbitrum on the heart of institutional onchain finance
The yr 2025 marked a decisive shift in blockchain infrastructure as institutional finance moved from experimentation to execution.
Tokenisation left pilot mode and entered full manufacturing, whereas TradFi and onchain finance started to merge right into a single working mannequin centered on Arbitrum.
From powering the world’s largest retail buying and selling platform to settling tokenised funds for a number of the world’s largest asset managers, Arbitrum One established itself because the venue of selection for main world establishments all through 2025.
“2025 was the yr that crypto captivated institutional finance and that megatrend will proceed to speed up throughout the panorama as capital allocators now act with conviction,” mentioned Brendan Ma, Head of Funding Technique on the Arbitrum Basis.
He added that Arbitrum is “uniquely positioned to drive the momentum in 2026 by supporting institutional adoption, serving to and rising gifted groups, and reinvesting for long-term progress.” That conviction, Ma argued, is now seen throughout the ecosystem.
Community market share and transaction progress
Arbitrum One crossed 2.1 billion+ lifetime transactions in 2025. Nonetheless, the tempo of exercise has accelerated sharply: whereas it took roughly three years to achieve the primary billion transactions, the community added the second billion in lower than 12 months.
Furthermore, Arbitrum maintained its place because the main L2 by market share, reaching a $20 billion+ Whole Worth Secured in 2025. This consolidation underscores sturdy person demand and deep liquidity relative to different layer 2 networks.
Ecosystem growth and developer exercise
The broader Arbitrum ecosystem expanded quickly in 2025, with 100+ chains dwell or in growth. Notable launches included the Ethereal Perps DEX, privacy-focused Zama, and consumer-facing Blackbird, reflecting rising variety in use instances.
At this time, greater than 1,000 tasks are powered by Arbitrum, making it a prime 3 chain globally by variety of protocols. This breadth of exercise alerts strong builder curiosity and reinforces its standing as a number one good contract platform.
On the identical time, the community generated over $600M in ecosystem GDP in 2025, a 30%+ year-on-year improve primarily based on charges produced by functions on Arbitrum One. This mixture of developer traction and income progress highlights bettering financial sustainability.
Arbitrum: institutional adoption and tokenisation momentum
As real-world belongings (RWAs) adoption went mainstream, Arbitrum turned a most well-liked venue for establishments bringing conventional monetary merchandise onchain. It welcomed companions together with Robinhood, Franklin Templeton, Blackrock, Spiko and others which can be shaping the following technology of market infrastructure.
In June 2025, Robinhood introduced tokenized US shares and ETFs for EU clients on Arbitrum. In simply six months, that providing expanded to virtually 2,000 tokenized equities on Arbitrum One, demonstrating sturdy early product-market match.
Furthermore, Robinhood plans to proceed this momentum in 2026 with a devoted blockchain constructed utilizing the Arbitrum stack, signaling a deeper technological alignment with the ecosystem.
On the governance facet, ArbitrumDAO‘s STEP 2.0 initiative allotted 35M ARB towards RWA initiatives, together with tokenized US Treasury merchandise and help for WisdomTree’s WTGXX, Spiko’s USTBL, and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI. In lower than 12 months from launch, Spiko reached $200M+ in AUM on Arbitrum.
DeFi, stablecoins and monetary infrastructure
Arbitrum strengthened its place as a liquidity anchor for decentralized finance in 2025. Stablecoins and tokenised real-world belongings each noticed breakout adoption on the community, reinforcing its function as a core DeFi settlement layer.
Stablecoin provide grew 82% YoY, reaching roughly $8 billion+ in market capitalization. Nonetheless, progress was not restricted to measurement: the community additionally turned the deepest venue for onchain {dollars} amongst L2s and probably the most various throughout USDC, USDT and newer belongings like USDai, thBILL and syrupUSDC.
Ecosystem initiatives such because the DRIP program helped drive 229%+ progress in stablecoins on Arbitrum since its launch in September 2025. This fast growth of greenback liquidity is a key pillar of broader arbitrum adoption.
Likewise, RWA tokenization on Arbitrum reached $1.1B+ in October 2025, representing an 18X improve from the identical interval in 2024. That surge coincided with scaled exercise throughout DeFi verticals.
Arbitrum hosted the most important deployments of Aave and Uniswap outdoors Ethereum, with lively loans climbing 109% to $1.5B. On the identical time, new lending merchandise from groups like Fluid expanded volumes by over 460%, and the DRIP program welcomed Morpho, Euler and Maple Finance into the ecosystem.
Monetary power and DAO reinvestment
Arbitrum’s monetary profile developed considerably in 2025. As an L2, it’s positioned for prime and sustainable margins, enabling the DAO to reinvest right into a compounding flywheel geared toward long-term ecosystem progress.
The Arbitrum ecosystem is about to finish 2025 with 90%+ gross margins throughout 4 distinct income streams, up from simply two within the earlier yr. Timeboost, launched in 2025, generated greater than $5M in income in its first seven months of operation.
Furthermore, ArbitrumDAO is on monitor to shut This autumn 2025 with roughly $6.5M in gross revenue, or about $26M annualized, alongside greater than 50%+ period-on-period progress. These figures underscore a sturdy and scaling enterprise mannequin.
The DAO additionally strengthened its steadiness sheet, holding over $150M in non-native belongings, together with money equivalents and ETH. That monetary buffer positions the ecosystem for sustained, strategic growth even below unstable market situations.
Waiting for 2026
The story of 2025 was one in every of synchronized progress throughout main verticals and asset courses. From world establishments to retail platforms, client functions to stablecoins, the Arbitrum ecosystem confirmed it could possibly help monetary exercise at world scale.
Because the business strikes into 2026, the target is evident. Collectively, builders, establishments and the DAO intention to deepen the rails of open programmable finance wherever they’ll create lasting worth.
That mentioned, the work forward stays important. Nonetheless, the momentum inbuilt 2025 suggests the ecosystem is prepared for its subsequent chapter and for Arbitrum All over the place to develop into a defining theme of the approaching cycle.
In abstract, 2025 established Arbitrum as a number one institutional, DeFi and RWA hub, laying sturdy foundations for continued growth and innovation in 2026.
