ParaFi makes 2 big predictions for 2030

ParaFi’s Ben Forman and Kevin Yedid-Botton break down their biggest predictions for the Empire podcast

article-image

Zakharchuk/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


The holidays are the perfect time to reminisce on the year that was and, of course, look ahead to the next six years. I mean, how else do you survive your turkey coma?

Speaking of predictions for 2030, ParaFi had some fascinating callouts in the most recent episode of the Empire podcast. Two stood out to me, and I wanted to talk more about them so get comfortable in your stretchy pants. 

The first was that tokenized real-world assets will outpace the overall value of digital assets. 

Excluding stablecoins, total RWA value has topped nearly $13.5 billion.  

Total RWA value per rwa.xyz

The total crypto market cap right now sits around $3.4 trillion, so RWA’s not ready to eat cryptos lunch just yet but, as ParaFi’s Ben Forman pointed out, we’ve seen RWAs jump in value, growing way over 50% in the past 12 months alone. 

The financial sector — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — is outdated. 

“We still don’t have … an Amazon experience for finance,” Forman said. 

So the opportunity to revamp the financial systems is ripe for the picking.

“The beauty of tokenization is that when you have assets on a blockchain, you can program logic into the actual asset itself. This reduces the need for lawyers for administrators for trustees, and it also opens up a whole host of other AI agent use cases where micro payments can be enabled,” Forman said. 

Right now, the biggest winners in the space are tokenized treasuries, which make up 62% of the whole pie. 

But you can’t talk about RWA tokenization without also addressing stablecoins. If you combine the two, according to rwa.xyz, you get a combined market cap of nearly $200 billion.

ParaFi thinks that, by 2030, we could see the stablecoin supply reach 10% of M2 money supply in the US. 

Similarly to their RWA prediction, there’s a way to go for stablecoins until they hit 10%. Right now, they barely make up 1% with M2 coming in at $21 trillion.

There are three reasons for ParaFi’s thinking here: Stablecoins have evolved as a new form of payment rails across the world. 

Then you have the potential for fintech companies to add in stablecoins because they’re not burdened by the legacy operating systems of older firms. So there’s potential to see a new business model of yield-bearing reserves to back stablecoins, ParaFi’s Kevin Yedid-Botton noted. 

Source: Delphi Digital

A Delphi Digital report from earlier this week found that weekly stablecoin transfer volume is at 302 billion, an increase of 235% year-to-date. 

“Stablecoins have found product-market fit and are enabling a more global digital economy,” the report said.

It’s hard not to be bullish about these two predictions.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Silk Road founder Ulbricht made a triumphant return to the Bitcoin Conference, 10 years on from sentencing

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful