Wall Street Giant Declares Crypto 'No Longer an Experiment'

When a $150 billion asset manager declares crypto "no longer an experiment," Wall Street is listening. WisdomTree CEO Jonathan Steinberg made that exact statement this week, marking a pivotal moment in traditional finance's embrace of digital assets.

Speaking at the Ondo Summit in New York, Steinberg revealed his firm's tokenized assets exploded from $30 million to $750 million in just one year—a 25x growth that's pushing the business toward profitability. "We have conviction," he said. "Eventually everything will go on chain."

Beyond Asset Management: Building Financial Infrastructure

WisdomTree's crypto push isn't just about launching digital products. The firm has been methodically building blockchain infrastructure, acquiring tokenization specialist Securrency before strategically selling it to the DTCC. This move helped establish "compliance-aware tokens" and programmable finance capabilities.

The company has expanded across multiple blockchains including Solana, launched tokenized funds, and developed WisdomTree Connect—a platform bridging self-custodied wallets with institutional systems. For Steinberg, this represents something bigger than portfolio diversification.

"Financial services—some of these banks go back a couple of centuries," he explained. "They built legacy on top of legacy. There is modernization that has to happen."

The Profitability Question

While WisdomTree doesn't currently profit from its digital assets division, Steinberg says they're "in line of sight" of turning the corner. The firm's aggressive scaling suggests confidence in long-term returns, even as many traditional players remain cautious.

This positioning could prove prescient. As regulatory clarity improves and institutional adoption accelerates, early movers like WisdomTree may capture outsized market share in tokenized assets—a market some analysts predict could reach trillions in coming years.

The Bigger Picture: Infrastructure vs. Speculation

WisdomTree's approach reflects a maturing crypto landscape where infrastructure plays matter more than speculative bets. By focusing on compliance, interoperability, and institutional-grade platforms, the firm is betting on crypto's utility rather than its volatility.

This shift has implications beyond asset management. If traditional financial giants successfully integrate blockchain technology, it could accelerate the "everything on-chain" future Steinberg envisions—where digital and traditional assets operate seamlessly within the same infrastructure.