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

Key Takeaways 

Google unveiled a new L1 blockchain network for financial markets, a move some viewed as a threat to Ethereum market share. But Stripe, Tether, and Circle have similar plans, too. 

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

The new chain, Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), has been billed as a fast and low-cost solution for stablecoin, other payments, and capital markets. 

The immediate market reaction? A possible threat to Ethereum’s dominance as the trusted and go-to settlement for the next generation of financial markets.

Pratik Kala, Head of Research at Apollo Crypto, said the trend will compound the pressure from Stripe, Circle, and Tether, which are also exploring their own chains. 

“These firms are organised and have a lot of capital – they don’t always win, but you can be assured that they will take a big stab at ETH’s market share.”

Source: X

Is Ethereum market share at risk?

As of August 2025, Ethereum controlled over 52% of total stablecoin settlements worth over $145 billion, according to DeFiLlama data.

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

Source: DeFiLlama

Solana[SOL] and BNB Chain came close to a tie for the third position at around $11B or 4% market dominance.

In other words, Ethereum had a clear lead in the segment, as of the time of writing.

In fact, this was the whole premise behind the renewed Ethereum treasury trend led by BitMine to front-run the expected stablecoin boom that could benefit ETH. 

Stocks and other real-world assets are also expected to move on-chain. And the latest Google move indicates it’s positioning itself for this trend, too. 

As of 2025, Ethereum also dominated the tokenized market with a 52% share or over $7B, according to RWA data. 

Source: RWA

However, Chuk Okpalugo, the product manager at Paxos, downplayed Google’s impact on Ethereum, stating that the new chain will be ‘permissioned’ and anti-stablecoin. 

“It’s essentially a private permissioned payments chain built for tokenized commercial bank deposits. The positioning is very much ‘don’t use stablecoins, put your deposits on us instead’.”

Even so, with top stablecoin issuers pushing for their own separate chains, Kala’s caution was warranted.

Google’s chain was currently at a private testnet and was scheduled for public launch later in the coming months.

In the meantime, Standard Chartered projected that the ETH price could hit $7,500 by the end of 2025, calling the recent pullback a ‘great entry point’ for investors.

The bank cited the growing crypto treasury trend as a key catalyst.