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…