Ethereum vs Figure Heloc

Ethereum and Figure Heloc sit at different layers of blockchain finance. Ethereum, launched in 2015, is a general-purpose Layer 1 platform: an open, decentralized network where anyone can deploy smart contracts and applications, with ETH as its native asset for fees and staking. FIGR_HELOC is a tokenized real-world asset — it represents home equity line of credit (HELOC) loans originated by Figure and brought on-chain via the Provenance blockchain, part of an effort to build institutional debt markets on blockchain rails.

Their mechanics have little in common. Ethereum is secured by Proof of Stake, with a large permissionless validator set and no supply cap; issuance to validators is partly offset by fee burning, leaving about 120.7 million ETH circulating. FIGR_HELOC has no consensus mechanism or monetary policy of its own — its roughly 21 billion units track a pool of underlying loan assets tokenized through Figure Connect and traded on Figure Markets.

Their purposes differ accordingly. ETH is open platform capital: volatile, permissionless, and used as gas, collateral, and staking bonds across the largest application ecosystem in crypto. FIGR_HELOC is financial plumbing for a specific asset class, standardizing credit assets into composable on-chain formats with 24/7 settlement.

In ecosystem terms, Ethereum is general infrastructure hosting DeFi, stablecoins, and tokenization broadly, while FIGR_HELOC represents the tokenized private credit segment — traditional lending assets using a blockchain as their settlement layer.