In 2025, a pivotal year for digital markets, Arbitrum adoption emerged as a key driver of the convergence between faded finance and onchain infrastructure.
Summary
Arbitrum at the guts of institutional onchain finance
The year 2025 marked a decisive shift in blockchain infrastructure as institutional finance moved from experimentation to execution.
Tokenisation left pilot mode and entered full production, whereas TradFi and onchain finance started to merge valid into a single running mannequin centered on Arbitrum.
From powering the sphere’s most bright retail trading platform to settling tokenised funds for about a of the sphere’s most bright asset managers, Arbitrum One established itself as the venue of different for main world institutions all over 2025.
“2025 was as soon as the year that crypto captivated institutional finance and that megatrend will continue to poke across the landscape as capital allocators now act with conviction,” said Brendan Ma, Head of Funding Technique at the Arbitrum Foundation.
He added that Arbitrum is “uniquely positioned to force the momentum in 2026 by supporting institutional adoption, helping and rising talented groups, and reinvesting for long-term increase.” That conviction, Ma argued, is now considered across the ecosystem.
Network market part and transaction increase
Arbitrum One crossed 2.1 billion+ lifetime transactions in 2025. Alternatively, the tempo of job has accelerated sharply: whereas it took roughly three years to reach the most most well-known billion transactions, the community added the second billion in not up to 12 months.
Moreover, Arbitrum maintained its build as the main L2 by market part, reaching a $20 billion+ Total Payment Secured in 2025. This consolidation underscores stable client quiz and deep liquidity relative to other layer 2 networks.
Ecosystem expansion and developer job
The broader Arbitrum ecosystem expanded in 2025, with 100+ chains dwell or in vogue. Essential launches integrated the Ethereal Perps DEX, privacy-centered Zama, and client-facing Blackbird, reflecting rising fluctuate in use circumstances.
Nowadays, extra than 1,000 projects are powered by Arbitrum, making it a high 3 chain globally by sequence of protocols. This breadth of job signals tough builder hobby and reinforces its operate as a number one natty contract platform.
On the identical time, the community generated over $600M in ecosystem GDP in 2025, a 30%+ year-on-year expand in line with charges produced by applications on Arbitrum One. This mixture of developer traction and revenue increase highlights making improvements to financial sustainability.
Arbitrum: institutional adoption and tokenisation momentum
As valid-world property (RWAs) adoption went mainstream, Arbitrum modified into a most smartly-most in style venue for institutions bringing faded financial merchandise onchain. It welcomed partners including Robinhood, Franklin Templeton, Blackrock, Spiko and others which would be shaping the next know-how of market infrastructure.
In June 2025, Robinhood announced tokenized US shares and ETFs for EU possibilities on Arbitrum. In only six months, that providing expanded to virtually 2,000 tokenized equities on Arbitrum One, demonstrating stable early product-market match.
Moreover, Robinhood plans to continue this momentum in 2026 with a dedicated blockchain built the use of the Arbitrum stack, signaling a deeper technological alignment with the ecosystem.
On the governance facet, ArbitrumDAO‘s STEP 2.0 initiative allotted 35M ARB toward RWA initiatives, including tokenized US Treasury merchandise and offers a boost to for WisdomTree’s WTGXX, Spiko’s USTBL, and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI. In not up to 12 months from commence, Spiko reached $200M+ in AUM on Arbitrum.
DeFi, stablecoins and financial infrastructure
Arbitrum bolstered its build as a liquidity anchor for decentralized finance in 2025. Stablecoins and tokenised valid-world property each and every saw breakout adoption on the community, reinforcing its role as a core DeFi settlement layer.
Stablecoin provide grew 82% YoY, reaching roughly $8 billion+ in market capitalization. Alternatively, increase was as soon as not limited to size: the community also modified into the deepest venue for onchain greenbacks among L2s and one among basically the most numerous across USDC, USDT and more fresh property treasure USDai, thBILL and syrupUSDC.
Ecosystem initiatives much just like the DRIP program helped force 229%+ increase in stablecoins on Arbitrum since its commence in September 2025. This rapid expansion of buck liquidity is a key pillar of broader arbitrum adoption.
Likewise, RWA tokenization on Arbitrum reached $1.1B+ in October 2025, representing an 18X expand from the identical duration in 2024. That surge coincided with scaled job across DeFi verticals.
Arbitrum hosted basically the most bright deployments of Aave and Uniswap outside Ethereum, with keen loans climbing 109% to $1.5B. On the identical time, unique lending merchandise from groups treasure Fluid expanded volumes by over 460%, and the DRIP program welcomed Morpho, Euler and Maple Finance into the ecosystem.
Monetary strength and DAO reinvestment
Arbitrum’s financial profile evolved vastly in 2025. As an L2, it’s positioned for excessive and sustainable margins, enabling the DAO to reinvest valid into a compounding flywheel aimed at long-term ecosystem increase.
The Arbitrum ecosystem is operate to entire 2025 with 90%+ inappropriate margins across four distinct revenue streams, up from merely two within the earlier year. Timeboost, launched in 2025, generated extra than $5M in revenue in its first seven months of operation.
Moreover, ArbitrumDAO is heading within the valid route to prevent Q4 2025 with roughly $6.5M in inappropriate revenue, or about $26M annualized, alongside extra than 50%+ duration-on-duration increase. These figures underscore a well-known and scaling substitute mannequin.
The DAO also bolstered its steadiness sheet, maintaining over $150M in non-native property, including money equivalents and ETH. That financial buffer positions the ecosystem for sustained, strategic expansion even under volatile market stipulations.
Awaiting 2026
The story of 2025 was as soon as one among synchronized increase across main verticals and asset classes. From world institutions to retail platforms, client applications to stablecoins, the Arbitrum ecosystem confirmed it’s going to give a boost to financial job at world scale.
As the substitute moves into 2026, the aim is clear. Collectively, builders, institutions and the DAO aim to deepen the rails of commence programmable finance wherever they would possibly be able to manufacture lasting mark.
That said, the work forward remains vital. Alternatively, the momentum inbuilt 2025 suggests the ecosystem is ready for its subsequent chapter and for Arbitrum In each build to changed into a defining theme of the impending cycle.
In abstract, 2025 established Arbitrum as a number one institutional, DeFi and RWA hub, laying stable foundations for persisted expansion and innovation in 2026.
