Alex Tapscott’s ‘Digital Asset Revolution’

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has massive potential to transform traditional financial services. Data from Emergen Research recently found that the global DeFi platform market size is expected to reach $507 billion by 2028. Moreover, the total value locked within DeFi currently exceeds $75 billion, demonstrating fast-paced growth compared to previous months this year.

Yet, DeFi’s potential may still not be realized by business leaders unfamiliar with the blockchain ecosystem. This notion is highlighted in Alex Tapscott’s recent book, Digital Asset Revolution. Tapscott, co-founder of the Blockchain Research Institute and managing director at Ninepoint Digital Asset Group, told Cointelegraph that he believes digital assets are going to be an important building block for a new internet, along with a financial industry that will change business models and markets. However, Tapscott noted that, to date, very few resources have been available to help enterprise leaders understand the relevance of digital assets. He said:

“Words like nonfungible tokens, central bank digital currencies and stablecoins are alien to people who are not involved in the world of crypto and blockchain. It’s our goal at the Blockchain Research Institute to illuminate the potential behind different digital assets, explaining what these are and why people should care about them in language that is easy to understand.”

How DeFi relates to the financial industry

In order to help readers understand the concepts behind DeFi, the first chapter of Digital Asset Revolution gives a broad overview of how decentralized finance could reinvent financial services. Tapscott begins by briefly summarizing how DeFi relates to nine specific functions of the finance industry: storing value, moving value, lending value, funding and investing, exchanging value, insuring value and managing risk, analyzing value, accounting for and auditing value and authenticating identity.

For example, in regard to storing value, Tapscott mentions that individuals and institutions can use noncustodial wallets like MakerDAO to act as their own banks. In terms of funding and investing, Tapscott notes that aggregators such as Yearn.finance and Rariable could potentially disintermediate investment advisers and robo advisers. Given these different use cases, Tapscott points out that the lines between traditional finance and DeFi will eventually blur as adoption rates grow. Yet, this most likely will not be the case in the immediate future, as skepticism around DeFi still remains.

Chapter one also addresses how a new ecosystem of digital assets is emerging from the growth of DeFi. This is an important aspect of the book, as co-author Don Tapscott told Cointelegraph that business leaders are still very much confused about what crypto represents. In order to clarify this, Digital Asset Revolution describes nine different digital asset classes, focusing on cryptocurrencies, protocol tokens, governance tokens, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), exchange tokens, securities tokens, stablecoins, natural asset tokens and central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

Cover of Digital Asset Revolution. Source: Blockchain Research Institute

While each of these assets is important, readers may be inclined to focus on the digital assets that are gaining momentum today. For example, the book features an entire chapter on stablecoins, demonstrating how these hold the potential to transform legacy payment infrastructures like SWIFT.

Recent: Crypto payments gain ground thanks to centralized payment processors

This does appear to be the case with some stablecoins, like Circle’s USD Coin (USDC). USDC was recently adopted by Banking Circle, a European bank focused on cross-border payments. But, some stablecoins are proving to be controversial. This was displayed following the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD Classic (USTC) or Luna Classic (LUNC). As such, readers of Digital Asset Revolution should still conduct their own research when looking into different digital asset use cases, especially since the sector is constantly evolving.

CBDCs are another interesting topic mentioned throughout the book. Chapter four is dedicated entirely to CBDCs and features an edited transcript from a webinar hosted by the Blockchain Research Institute with J. Christopher Giancarlo, former chair of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission and co-founder of the Digital Dollar Project.

In this chapter, Giancarlo explains what a “digital dollar” represents, noting that the concept is very different from stablecoins, which are often tied to another asset of value. Giancarlo remarks that a digital dollar, also known as a CBDC, is a thing of value itself. While a number of concerns remain around CBDCs, Giancarlo also details why privacy is important in order for a digital dollar to be successful:

“At the Digital Dollar Project, we believe that developing the jurisprudence around…