Crypto Industry Evolves: Real-World Assets Move Onchain, Stablecoin Assets May Surge 1000% by 2030

The time for permissionless capital markets is now. The crypto industry, often criticized for manufacturing tokens rather than creating value, is showing signs of evolution. The technology is now mature enough, blockspace is abundant and affordable, and regulatory pressures are easing, paving the way for real-world assets to move onchain.

One notable development is the success of BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, which offers a superior alternative to its off-chain equivalents. Additionally, stablecoin assets are on the rise, with Mastercard’s recent announcement to facilitate payments using stablecoins potentially bringing crypto to a broader audience. According to a recent report, stablecoin assets under management could surge to as much as $3.5 trillion by 2030, which would attract more investable assets to the onchain ecosystem.

The ease of buying and selling assets onchain is also changing the perception of what constitutes an investable asset. For instance, the author recently purchased Pokémon cards and a bottle of whiskey onchain, highlighting the convenience and potential of this new financial system. This trend is expected to continue, with more options becoming available for crypto investors.

Experts like Kyle Samani predict that virtually all assets will eventually trade on global and permissionless systems like Solana. This includes not only traditional assets like stocks and bonds but also new, crypto-native assets. Innovations such as Time.fun, Zora, TRUMP, Story Protocol, and Believe App are experimenting with tokenizing time, content, emoluments, IP, and ideas, respectively. While many of these experiments may fail, the ongoing innovation in crypto capital markets is likely to yield new and interesting developments.

In contrast, traditional financial markets have seen a decline in experimentation. The high cost of IPOs, estimated to be as much as $26 million for a company with $100 million in revenue, has made it prohibitively expensive for smaller companies to raise capital. In crypto, however, raising capital is significantly cheaper, and in some cases, it can be done without selling equity, as demonstrated by Zora’s “just for fun” token.

While returns for most crypto investors have been disappointing, the potential for crypto capital markets to evolve into a more value-driven system is promising. Andrew Carnegie, who derided the speculative nature of stock markets in his time, might find sympathy in the current state of crypto markets. Just as US Steel, the product of financial engineering, became the first billion-dollar corporation and set new standards for public ownership, crypto capital markets may be on the cusp of a similar transformation.