Theta Capital: Blockchain as a new financial infrastructure

June 25, 2026

_{This interview was originally written in Dutch. This is an English translation.}

The debate surrounding blockchain is increasingly shifting from technology to economic value creation. Behind terms such as tokenisation, on-chain and crypto lies a growing ecosystem of protocols, each with its own revenue models. Financial Investigator spoke to Ruud Smets, Managing Partner and CIO of Theta Capital, and Jeroen M. Tielman, Head of Institutional Relations at Theta Blockchain Ventures, managed by Theta Capital, about the applications relevant to institutional investors.

By Esther Waal

In the world of blockchain, various concepts come together: technology, infrastructure, protocols, tokenisation, on-chain, crypto. How can institutional investors distinguish between these concepts?

Ruud Smets: ‘It helps to establish a hierarchy. Blockchain is the underlying technology and a new layer of infrastructure. Protocols are the applications that run on top of it: independent software networks such as the trading platform Uniswap, the lending platform Aave, or Hyperliquid, which is a derivatives platform. Tokens are the governance and ownership instruments – in other words, the equivalent of shares within a protocol. ‘On-chain’ means that economic activity takes place directly on the infrastructure. Tokenisation refers to the transfer of existing assets, such as bonds or shares, onto this infrastructure, also known as ‘rails’. ‘Crypto’ is the umbrella term for tokens that have a strong cryptographic component and which, in the early stages, became synonymous with speculation.’

Where does blockchain’s revenue model lie?

Jeroen M. Tielman: ‘Blockchain protocols offer services for which users are willing to pay. The revenue flows to the protocol’s stakeholders, including token holders. Uniswap, for example, has around $1 trillion in annual transactions and $800 million in fee revenue. Part of this revenue goes to the liquidity providers and the other part to the token holders. Hyperliquid’s annual fee revenue has reached around $1 billion, 99 per cent of which goes to token holders via a token buyback programme. You can actually regard the protocols as the toll gates for on-chain traffic.’

Should institutional investors view blockchain as a separate asset class, as part of a tech allocation, or as new financial infrastructure?

Smets: ‘The crux of the matter is that blockchain is a new, internet-native infrastructure layer, made possible by technological progress. It enables the transfer of value and the implementation of business models directly via internet protocols. This is hugely disruptive. In our current system, every payment or other financial transaction passes through a web of intermediaries, all of which add costs, friction and barriers. Blockchain reduces this to peer-to-peer transactions coordinated by protocols.

Direct investments in this infrastructure layer take the form of digital tokens, which constitute a new asset class. In addition, investments can be made in the companies that use this infrastructure behind the scenes to offer new services or to provide existing services more efficiently. Take Polymarket, for example, which uses blockchain technology to offer prediction markets. These corporate investments take the form of traditional equity investments.’

Blockchain is set to ‘rewire’ the global financial system at a rapid pace. What does this mean, and what investment opportunities does it create?

Tielman: ‘The internet made information freely transferable and rebuilt everything that relied on it. Blockchain is doing the same for value and ownership, and is doing so faster. The first killer application of the ‘internet for information’ was email. Those of the ‘internet for value’ are stablecoins. Monthly stablecoin volume now exceeds $4 trillion, with year-on-year growth of nearly 100 per cent. The tokenisation of bonds, investment funds and shares is following suit. New markets are emerging that did not exist on the old infrastructure: perpetual futures, prediction markets, on-chain credit. AI agents are emerging as new economic actors that require machine-native infrastructure. The base is still small compared to what they could replace, but the direction is clear and the growth curve can be safely extrapolated. This development is driving strong growth in on-chain traffic, and consequently in the fee revenues of blockchain protocols.’

Which segments within blockchain do you believe currently offer the most attractive risk-return profile, and why?

Tielman: ‘Four segments are leading the way: 1) stablecoins and the underlying payment infrastructure, where regulatory clarity and exponential adoption are converging; 2) the tokenisation of other assets such as shares and bonds, where we are at the dawn of massive growth; 3) DeFi protocols with demonstrable turnover, such as Hyperliquid and Uniswap, which show that tokens actually capture value, and 4) the on-chain infrastructure for AI, such as compute, identity and data provenance, which provides the rails for the growing AI economy. In our view, the risk-return profile is most attractive with early exposure to this underlying infrastructure via specialised managers. That is the most asymmetric risk-return trade on the table in this cycle.’

To what extent are risks such as hacks, security issues, counterparty issues or a lack of governance a real concern?

Smets: ‘The scepticism is justified. The first phase has been disappointing on several fronts, from bankruptcies such as FTX and Celsius to hacks and poorly designed tokens. The next phase is different. The GENIUS Act provides a framework for stablecoin issuers with one-to-one backing and monthly audits. Institutional custodians such as BNY and State Street offer professional custody services. Smart contracts for the major protocols are audited externally. Governance in mature networks is shifting towards decentralised structures. The risks haven’t gone away, but they have become structurally smaller, comparable to security issues on the early internet that are now manageable. For those entering the market now, the risk profile is different from what it was five years ago.’

What could the growth of AI mean for blockchain?

Tielman: ‘AI and blockchain are two halves of the same shift. AI commoditises intelligence; blockchain commoditises trust. Both bring what are arguably the most expensive inputs for economic activity into the realm of software, and both are hugely disruptive. The cross-pollination occurs along four lines: Blockchain is therefore the only real counterforce to the concentration of AI power.’

1. Authenticity and provenance: cryptographic signatures make it possible to verify whether content is authentic.
2. Economically active AI agents: blockchain provides the machine-native framework on which agents hold assets, enter into contracts and act within programmed limits.
3. Intellectual property: the infrastructure for registering, assigning and compensating for IP that trains AI.
4. Decentralised networks: providers of computing power, data and energy are becoming viable alternatives to centralised providers.

What role can blockchain investments play within an institutional portfolio?

Smets: ‘For the first time in the history of blockchain, adoption is outpacing capital. Retail investors dominated the initial, speculative phase. With the institutional adoption of the technology and improved regulation, institutional capital is now also coming to the fore. For the time being, however, these new investors are only finding their way into a small number of late-stage assets via familiar instruments, such as shares in Coinbase, Circle or Robinhood, and Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. Direct infrastructure investments via tokens are currently in an investment vacuum.’

Tielman: ‘The reason is structural. For years, regulation was hostile, leading to tokens being deliberately designed to be legally ambiguous. The sell-side did not build coverage. Standard consultants did not develop underwriting models. The market structure on which allocators rely for traditional assets does not yet exist for protocol tokens. That is now changing. BlackRock purchased UNI tokens in February 2026. Apollo purchased MORPHO tokens. Protocol tokens are becoming investable as the canonical instrument for capturing the economic value of this infrastructure. This is the moment when institutional capital must take a serious look at these developments and their implications.’

Read the interview in the digital magazine