After multiple market cycles, an increasingly clear shift is emerging in the crypto asset industry: capital attention is turning toward longer-term use cases such as payments, settlement, asset management, and financial infrastructure.
A fintech industry report released by McKinsey and QED Investors shows that global fintech market revenue in 2025 is approximately 650 billion USD, up about 21 percent year over year, outpacing the overall growth rate of traditional financial services. If recent growth trends continue, fintech market revenue could approach 2 trillion USD by 2030. More notably, stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and real-world assets are becoming key components of this wave of financial digitalization.
Not Just Expanding Trading Volume
Stablecoins have become one of the most important base assets in the crypto market. Data shows that the total transaction value of stablecoins in 2025 is approximately 35 trillion USD, but the scale truly related to terminal payments such as corporate payments and remittances is about 390 billion USD, accounting for only about 1 percent of total transaction volume. This means that much of the current on-chain stablecoin flow still comes from trading, arbitrage, and other crypto-native activities.
From another perspective, this also indicates that the real payment market for stablecoins remains in its early stages. As cross-border payments, corporate settlement, demand for digital dollars, and on-chain finance continue to develop, stablecoins are gradually extending into global payment and settlement instruments.
Industry forecasts suggest that by 2030, the stablecoin market value could reach between 2 trillion and 4 trillion USD, corresponding to a relatively high long-term growth rate. Whether this market potential can be realized will ultimately depend on whether stablecoins can consistently enter scenarios such as corporate payments, cross-border trade, treasury management, and capital market settlement.
Connecting More Traditional Assets
Stablecoins are not the only direction for the expansion of crypto asset infrastructure. Tokenized deposits and RWA are also drawing attention from traditional financial institutions.
Compared with ordinary crypto assets, tokenized deposits are closer to a digital representation of funds within the banking system and can be used to improve the efficiency of inter-institutional fund transfers and settlement. Bonds, funds, money market instruments, and other real-world assets are gradually moving on-chain, allowing blockchain to take on more complex financial infrastructure functions.
This shift carries significant implications. In the past, growth in the crypto asset market relied heavily on new trading users and rising asset prices. The next phase of growth may come more from on-chain financial activity itself. When funds can be issued, traded, collateralized, cleared, and settled on blockchain, the market value will gradually expand to reflect "how much real financial activity can migrate on-chain."
By 2030, the tokenized RWA market could reach approximately $2 trillion. Meanwhile, payment companies, banks, and fintech firms are also expanding their participation in stablecoin and crypto asset settlement networks.
Compliance Capability Becomes a Key Foundation
As crypto assets enter broader financial scenarios, the standards of industry competition are also changing.
Early fintech and crypto industries placed greater emphasis on product innovation, user growth, and market speed, while mature-stage enterprises must simultaneously address fund security, risk control, identity verification, anti-money laundering, asset custody, and regulatory requirements across different jurisdictions. An increasing number of fintech firms are beginning to view regulatory capability as a key foundation for business expansion and building user trust.
This trend may further drive divergence in the crypto market. Platforms that rely solely on new assets, new concepts, or short-term trading hype to attract users may face growing competitive pressure over the long term. Platforms with stable trading infrastructure, sufficient liquidity, risk management systems, and sustained compliance capabilities are better positioned to absorb institutional capital and more complex financial demands.
Identity authentication, KYC/KYB, AML, on-chain risk identification, and data infrastructure may also become new growth markets. As more traditional capital enters the on-chain space, the service ecosystem built around crypto assets continues to expand.
Value Assessment of Crypto Assets
The prediction that the stablecoin market will grow to a scale of trillions of dollars does not mean that all crypto assets will benefit equally. What is more worth observing in the future market is actual usage: whether the share of stablecoin payments can continue to rise, whether RWA can establish stable on-chain liquidity, whether financial institutions will expand the scale of crypto asset settlement, and whether on-chain infrastructure can offer advantages in security, cost, and efficiency.
From this perspective, the crypto asset industry is gradually moving beyond the stage of relying solely on market narrative expansion. Payments, cross-border settlement, asset tokenization, and financial infrastructure are forming new growth pillars.
For the crypto market, this may mean that the core of the next round of competition is bringing more real capital, assets, and financial activities on-chain. As crypto assets begin to become part of the global financial system, the standard for measuring long-term value will gradually shift toward real demand, capital efficiency, compliance capability, and sustained use value.
Disclaimer
This content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be regarded as investment advice or a trading recommendation. Digital assets are subject to price volatility and potential risks, and the availability of related products and services may vary depending on the laws and regulatory requirements of different jurisdictions. Please make sure to understand the relevant rules and carefully assess the risks before participating in any trading activities.
