The Future of Money and Contracts Is Public Blockchains: ARK

In the latest “Big Ideas” report by ARK Invest, the popular US asset manager claims blockchain will be one of the most significant technologies to shape an already technological era.

The report highlights 14 different technologies pegged to impact multiple sectors and serve as essential platforms for further innovation — including smart contracts and cryptocurrencies.

With global adoption, smart contracts and public blockchains will play a pivotal role in verifying digital scarcity and proof of ownership, Ark said.

“The financial ecosystem is likely to reconfigure to accommodate the rise of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts,” the report states.

“These technologies increase transparency, reduce the influence of capital and regulatory controls, and collapse contract execution costs.”

Ark has been a long-time supporter of crypto and blockchain. Its CEO Cathie Wood previously predicted that the price of bitcoin would reach $1 million by 2030. 

The firm also boasts a significant amount of shares in top US exchange Coinbase, owning 4.53% of the company’s stock, representing roughly $347 million dollars.

An on-chain future driven by blockchain technology

The cryptocurrency industry has been continuously growing despite the collapse of prominent players in the market, which recently saw around $1.5 trillion wiped from the industry, the report said.

As the market slowly goes into recovery mode, Ark believes there will be a long-term opportunity for Bitcoin, DeFi and Web3. The firm claimed that over the next 10 years, “cryptocurrencies and smart contracts could command $20 trillion and $5 trillion in market value, respectively.”

The total value of all cryptocurrencies is currently just shy of $1.1 trillion; that figure would need to grow by 1,700% for Ark’s prediction to realize.

ARK pegged three revolutions of industry to get us there: upheavals across money, finance and the internet.

Money

The money revolution will see a movement away from fiat currencies and central banking systems into a global, more decentralized system. In particular, the report notes the long-term opportunity for Bitcoin is strengthening.

“Bitcoin’s volatility has obscured its long-term returns. Despite five drawdowns greater than 75% since its inception in 2009, bitcoin has delivered positive annualized returns over 3-, 4-, and 5-year time horizons,” Ark said.

Adding that, “the price of one bitcoin could exceed $1 million in the next decade,” more-or-less reiterating Wood’s bullish call.

Finance

On the finance side, there’s opportunity for decentralized financial (DeFi) to bring financial services to unbanked communities. Ark reasoned there are over 2 billion people who currently lack access to essential banking services.

“Financial services deployed on open protocols enable anyone with an internet connection access to custody, trading, and lending facilities,” the report said, “As insolvencies mounted across crypto lending businesses like Celsius and Voyager, decentralized lending markets like Aave continued to operate as designed.”

The report notes that if DeFi builders were to charge just a third of legacy finance rates — and financial services were to move to blockchain infrastructure at the same internet adoption rate in the early 2000s — the DeFi industry alone could be valued at $5.3 trillion by 2030. 

Internet

ARK remains bullish on a potential internet revolution. Web2 thrives under tech monopolies that monetizes via user data — but this could change with the adoption of Web3 technologies which “introduces digital property rights for the first time.”

“Decentralized protocols enable the governance of — and open access to — distributed data, limiting central aggregator control,” the report said. 

“Web3 embeds economics into software, enabling users to monetize and participate in network development.”

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