“The entire fintech sector, plus the traditional finance sector, plus the asset management side, including the government, are starting to have some kind of footprint in crypto,” Lai said. “We see a whole different set of industry players starting to build something related to crypto.”
The report, titled “The Future of Blockchain Applications: Reshaping Global Industries”, was released on Thursday. It aims to project how blockchain adoption will evolve over the next 25 years, but also anticipates explosive growth in the next few years in an ecosystem now worth US$2.6 trillion.
For now, finance remains the most practical use case. OKX has sought to expand in traditional finance through partnerships, most notably with Standard Chartered, allowing clients to use cryptocurrencies and tokenised money-market funds as collateral.
The report predicts that eventually “the distinction between ‘crypto banks’ or ‘neo banks’ versus traditional banks will largely disappear”. But OKX has no plans to encroach on traditional banks’ territory.
