Special report: The Unstoppable Rise of Digital Assets
In a special report for AAX, we examine the new generation of exchanges, custodians, regulations and asset classes now leveling the investment playing field.
This article is sponsored by AAX
From the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis, bitcoin emerged. In its early years, bitcoin had little or no regulation, unreliable custodians and high volatility. The market for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was also roiled by scandals and scams.
Fast forward to now. A year of Covid-19 has not only changed the world at large but also dramatically accelerated the acceptance of bitcoin and other digital assets as institutional-grade investments. The total market size of the tokenized economy is valued at US$18.1 billion. In comparison, the total digital asset market size is now approximately US$350 billion, according to The Unstoppable Rise of Digital Assets, a special Forkast.Insights report sponsored by AAX.
“More money is flowing in, and that’s not just because of the Covid-19 pandemic,” AAX CEO Thor Chan told Forkast.News. “We are also seeing more innovation, such as the growth of the stablecoin market and an increase in the quantity of stablecoin that is being issued.”
For the blockchain and the digital assets industry, 2020 may be remembered as a banner year for decentralized finance (DeFi). While the total value of USD locked in DeFi has exploded from over US$600 million in January to over US$15 billion in Q4 of 2020, DeFi is still complex and experimental for many retail investors.
“Once they get their first bitcoin, get their USDT, they can start trading it,” Chan said. “[And once introduced to the ecosystem] we could begin to tell them more about DeFi assets.”
The cryptocurrency market of 2020 and beyond is not the same crypto market of 2013 or even 2017. This year, it has evolved into a digital asset market. Learn more about what this means for the investment playing field in 2021 and beyond by downloading your own copy of The Unstoppable Rise of Digital Assets.