By Thomas Carter

If crypto is music technology, we’re still in the phonograph phase.

As it stands today, only 1% of the world’s investable assets are in crypto or digital assets of any kind. On Nov. 8 the global crypto market cap touched $3 trillion for the first time.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance Coin, as expected, led the way as the only currencies above a $100 billion market cap.

FinTech pioneer and blockchain innovator, and author of this column, Thomas Carter of Carlsbad was the only public figure to accurately predict when crypto would reach its first trillion-dollar market cap in 2020 and he is back to predict trillions more will flow into digital assets as a whole in the very near future.

At $3 trillion, crypto represents only 1% of the world’s $250 trillion investable assets.

With the level of innovation going on in blockchain and how fast that will revolutionize entire industries, and with the growing adoption of other digital assets like NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and Security Tokens, it is not unrealistic that we see 5% to 7% of global investable assets move into these spaces in the coming two to three years.

Now, we’re talking about $10, $15, $20 trillion in crypto and digital assets. I tell anyone who asks me that we’re just barely scratching the surface of what blockchain will do for countless industries, and to prepare for the tsunami of innovation that will inevitably bring digital assets along for the ride.

Also, the adoption of other digital assets alongside crypto in 2020 ended with a total NFT trade volume of just under half a billion dollars, and so far through the third quarter of 2021 that number has skyrocketed to well over $10 billion.

Leading companies in the space like Axie Infinity (NFT-based online video game) are raking in hundreds of millions in revenue each month.

NFTs bring an unprecedented efficiency and transparency to the art, collectibles and gaming world, creating verifiable digital scarcity for the first time in the history of the space.

With an already existing $370 billion collectibles industry and an annual $50 billion spent on in-game purchases, many see NFTs as the new vehicle for these economies to thrive in.

A recent Nasdaq article on NFTs boldly stated, “We firmly believe that this digital asset market will be as big as or even bigger than the physical asset market in the long run.”

It is hard to deny the success of what crypto has done since its inception but even from the beginning of 2021, it has managed to triple its market cap all the while traditional fund managers and advisors slowly enter the space.

Just five weeks ago, the fifth-largest retail bank in the U.S. announced it would offer bitcoin services to fund managers and Goldman Sachs has just started supplying its institutional trading clients with cryptocurrency research reports.

Security tokens, or STOs, stand out in this new digital asset class because of their SEC compliant status. A security token is a unique token issued on a blockchain, representing a stake in an external asset — a digital security.

A company wishing to distribute shares to investors can use a security token that offers the same benefits one would expect from traditional securities like shares or dividends.

Since these sit on the blockchain, the process of transfers and settlement is efficient and automated and their ability to be traded and liquidated is far simpler by not having to be restricted by traditional market open and close times.

Looking closer at my predictions, I see the future of blockchain so clearly because I am helping to build it.

I founded and am chairman of DealBox, a security token issuance and investment packaging platform started in 2016.

I’m also the co-founder and chief executive officer of Total Network Services (TNS), a blockchain technology company whose chief aim is to “make crypto easy” and enable the new blockchain economy.

TNS is leading the way in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry with their innovation the Enhanced Mobile Equipment Identifier (E-MEID) allowing for all internet connected devices to be verified and secured by blockchain.

We also are creating a next generation NFT marketplace “NFTys” and created Digital Names, the human-readable solution to complex crypto keys needed for transactions.

There are many who are working to build the blockchain economy to full scale, however, the total investment has gone into the space so far in 2021.

Over $20 billion of venture capital has been poured into blockchain and crypto related companies so far this year, five times more than what was invested in 2020. That is something you have to consider when looking at the future of digital assets.

That $20 billion represents over a thousand new businesses looking to create new technologies that make crypto, digital assets, and blockchain more applicable and not to mention many of those companies will create their own cryptos, NFTs and STOs in the process.

For those innovating and investing in this space, the next few years will be really exciting.

Thomas Carter is a Carlsbad resident, founder of DealBox, Inc, and CEO of Total Network Services Corp.