David Duong now leads Ethereum Institutional’s U.S. work after heading investment research at Coinbase Institutional.
The role centers on engagement with banks, asset managers and other financial institutions. The organization says it gathers their requirements around tokenization, stablecoins and onchain finance, then connects them with teams developing services on the network.
Over a 17-year stretch, Duong held banking roles at HSBC, Santander and Deutsche Bank before joining Coinbase Institutional as global head of investment research. The organization credits him with more than two decades in institutional markets research.
Members of the Ethereum Foundation’s enterprise team created the group, which became a Swiss nonprofit association on July 1. It operates independently of the foundation. The organization says it was established after the foundation shifted resources toward protocol research, and presents its separate structure as a way to avoid favoring a particular vendor.
J.P. Morgan’s Oct. 19 rollout added Ethereum as a second public blockchain for JPM Coin (JPMD), which was already live on Base. The bank’s expansion of JPM Coin to Ethereum offers a recent example of institutional activity on the network; it does not establish a broader sector-wide trend.
Ethereum Institutional says fragmented adoption can expose institutions to counterparty risk and raise integration costs. The nonprofit says its work is intended to help financial firms coordinate their requirements with teams across the network.
The group’s next scheduled event is a Nov. 12 forum in London for banks, asset managers and market infrastructure firms. Earlier editions took place in Hong Kong and New York.
