Google unveils GCUL L1 blockchain: ‘Will stab at Ethereum’s market share’

Key Takeaways 

Google unveiled a brand new L1 blockchain community for monetary markets, a transfer some seen as a risk to Ethereum market share. However Stripe, Tether, and Circle have comparable plans, too. 

Google has unveiled its blockchain L1 community, designed for funds infrastructure, sparking considerations over Ethereum’s [ETH] long-term moat amid stablecoin and tokenization hype. 

The brand new chain, Google Cloud Common Ledger (GCUL), has been billed as a quick and low-cost resolution for stablecoin, different funds, and capital markets. 

The instant market response? A attainable risk to Ethereum’s dominance because the trusted and go-to settlement for the subsequent technology of economic markets.

Pratik Kala, Head of Analysis at Apollo Crypto, mentioned the trend will compound the stress from Stripe, Circle, and Tether, that are additionally exploring their very own chains. 

“These corporations are organised and have a number of capital – they don’t all the time win, however you will be assured that they’ll take an enormous stab at ETH’s market share.”

Supply: X

Is Ethereum market share in danger?

As of August 2025, Ethereum managed over 52% of complete stablecoin settlements value over $145 billion, in keeping with DeFiLlama data.

Tron [TRX] ranked second with a 29% market share or about $82 billion stablecoin market share. 

Supply: DeFiLlama

Solana[SOL] and BNB Chain got here near a tie for the third place at round $11B or 4% market dominance.

In different phrases, Ethereum had a transparent lead within the phase, as of the time of writing.

In reality, this was the entire premise behind the renewed Ethereum treasury development led by BitMine to front-run the anticipated stablecoin growth that would profit ETH. 

Shares and different real-world belongings are additionally anticipated to maneuver on-chain. And the most recent Google transfer signifies it’s positioning itself for this development, too. 

As of 2025, Ethereum additionally dominated the tokenized market with a 52% share or over $7B, in keeping with RWA data. 

Supply: RWA

Nevertheless, Chuk Okpalugo, the product supervisor at Paxos, downplayed Google’s impression on Ethereum, stating that the brand new chain will probably be ‘permissioned’ and anti-stablecoin. 

“It’s basically a personal permissioned funds chain constructed for tokenized business financial institution deposits. The positioning may be very a lot ‘don’t use stablecoins, put your deposits on us as an alternative’.”

Even so, with high stablecoin issuers pushing for their very own separate chains, Kala’s warning was warranted.

Google’s chain was at present at a personal testnet and was scheduled for public launch later within the coming months.

Within the meantime, Customary Chartered projected that the ETH worth may hit $7,500 by the top of 2025, calling the latest pullback a ‘nice entry level’ for buyers.

The financial institution cited the rising crypto treasury development as a key catalyst.