Is 2021 the year of crypto’s coming of age?

Word on the Block | Forkast.News

The first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund made its debut on Wall Street just a little over a fortnight ago. Six days later, Mastercard partnered with digital asset management company Bakkt to bring cryptocurrencies into its network. As increasing numbers of mainstream finance sector businesses enter the crypto space, digital assets are reaching a level of maturity that’s defying the predictions of their critics.

“Blockchain, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are no longer some young, innovative technology,” Blockdata co-founder and managing director Jonathon Knegtel said in a video interview with Forkast.News. “It’s almost a teenager.”

Moves by traditional finance sector players such as banks to integrate crypto with their existing products and services are giving the digital asset industry the momentum it needs to achieve critical mass in the mainstream, Knegtel explained.

“[Mastercard and Bakkt’s partnership is] making it a lot easier for people to actually enter the ecosystem and partake,” he said. “Because more users are coming in, the value goes up, and then the value gets circulated inside, and people start funding each other. And that's the stage we're at now.”

Amid all this, crypto banks are emerging to further disrupt the banking system. These crypto banks — and digital asset businesses — resemble “challenger” banks such as PayPal and Revolut, providing crypto-focused financial services such as borrowing, lending and saving. If the previous wave of finance industry disruption was brought on by challenger banks, crypto banks appear to represent the next one.

“Challenger banks definitely introduced the concept, but that means it's a lower jump for them to then jump to the next point and be exposed to crypto,” Knegtel said.

The crypto space has seen major growth in 2021. In the third quarter, blockchain companies raised US$6.5 billion, a 30% increase from the previous quarter, according to Blockdata. Half of the 20 biggest venture capital firms now have exposure to crypto exchanges, and institutional decentralized finance is expected to become a US$1 trillion industry.

The growth in the capital involved comes as blockchain companies reach critical mass and require larger fundraising rounds, which Knegtel believes is a sign that the crypto space is reaching maturity, although he also points out that the growth of the DeFi space remains minuscule compared to traditional finance.

“US$1 trillion is just 1% of the assets under management of the top 100 banks in the world,” he said. “One percent as a part of an asset diversification strategy in 2021 is not that much. And that alone would bring another US$1 trillion.”

Watch Knegtel’s full interview with Forkast.News Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau to learn more about crypto banks’ disruptive effects on the banking system, how regulation can propel the crypto space into maturity, how DeFi may challenge centralized crypto banks, and the risks behind the burgeoning market for non-fungible tokens.