Size of the Opportunity
Crypto assets are revolutionizing the financial system's foundation on two levels: payments and assets.
Payments: Decentralized payment solutions allow individuals to own digital asset accounts, eliminating reliance on banks or third-party intermediaries. This enables funds to flow globally in real-time, significantly enhancing efficiency.
Assets: Real World Assets (RWA) solutions tokenize real-world assets such as stocks and bonds, enabling on-chain trading and reconstructing the entire process from issuance and pricing to transactions.
The financial infrastructure changes driven by crypto will empower everyone to allocate global assets—including stocks, bonds, crypto, and non-standard assets—on-chain, achieving freedom, efficiency, fair competition, and equitable wealth distribution.
The current market capitalization of $3.8 trillion for crypto assets is just the beginning. Since the introduction of the Nasdaq-100 Index in 1985, the U.S. The stock market has grown 35-fold over 40 years, from a $2.3 trillion market cap to $80 trillion. With the accelerating growth of crypto assets, we believe the market capitalization could reach at least $10 trillion within the next five years, with rapid potential to break through $15–20 trillion.
The scale of index-based passive investments in cryptocurrencies is expected to reach $500 billion within the next five years.
As of the latest data, passive investments account for over 50% of asset management in the U.S., with total U.S. equity ETFs reach $8.3 trillion, and the largest ETF products exceeding $600 billion. Passive investment has become mainstream in the stock market.
As an emerging asset class, crypto assets are marked by a constant flow of new concepts, with over a million new tokens issued on-chain each month, posing a high learning barrier for investors. Additionally, the high price volatility of crypto assets and the significant drawdowns of individual tokens present considerable risks for investors. Index-based passive investment products, which track the market or specific sectors, offer the best option for professional investors focused on long-term trends to allocate crypto assets effectively.
With the growing scale of the crypto market and increasing demand for investment management, now is the ideal time to launch index-based passive investment products.
In recent years, the development of infrastructure—especially improvements in independent custody, multi-asset liquidity, and clearer regulatory frameworks—has created a solid foundation for launching such products. Historically, the first S&P 500 Index ETF, SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January 22, 1993, when the total U.S. stock market capitalization stood at $4.5 trillion at the end of 1992. Currently, the total market capitalization of the crypto market is approaching $4 trillion, making this the right moment for the introduction of index-based passive investment products.
Referring to the $80 trillion U.S. stock market, equity ETFs account for $8.3 trillion, approximately 10% of the total market capitalization. Crypto market passive investment products are expected to grow even faster, potentially reaching over 5% of the crypto market capitalization within the next five years, with a projected scale of $500 billion.
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