ARK Invest’s Big Ideas 2026 report outlines one of the firm’s most ambitious long-term projections yet: a multi-trillion-dollar tokenized asset ecosystem by the end of the decade, alongside a crypto market that could exceed $20 trillion in total value.
The forecasts, rooted in accelerating institutional adoption, regulatory clarity, and rapid on-chain integration of traditional financial instruments, suggest a dramatic reshaping of global capital markets by 2030.
Tokenized Asset Market Could Top $10–12 Trillion
A central highlight of the report is a detailed projection of the global tokenization market.
A stacked forecast chart covering 2024–2030 shows growth across nearly every major asset class, including tokenized public equities, sovereign debt, corporate bonds, commodities, securitized real estate, private credit, and venture capital.
By 2030, the total height of the stacked categories reaches into the low-teen trillions, indicating ARK’s expectation that tokenized assets could command more than $10 trillion in value globally.
Forecasted growth of tokenization market (Source: Ark Invest)
The firm notes that tokenization is expanding beyond early categories like U.S. Treasuries and gold, both of which saw explosive growth in 2025, to encompass a broad cross-section of financial assets. In fact, ARK highlights that the market value of tokenized real-world assets tripled to nearly $19 billion in 2025, with U.S. Treasuries and commodity-backed assets leading adoption.
The report emphasized that the early expansion is merely a precursor to what it expects to be one of the most significant technology-driven shifts in capital markets since the rise of electronic trading. Tokenized financial instruments, from stocks to private credit, are projected to become deeply integrated into blockchain settlement rails as banks, fintechs, and asset managers roll out their own on-chain infrastructure.
Regulatory Clarity Fuels Acceleration
ARK attributes part of the momentum to the GENIUS Act, which it says has triggered a wave of institutional tokenization initiatives across major financial institutions. From stablecoin-optimized Layer-1 networks to tokenized money-market funds and bank-chartered stablecoin issuers, the infrastructure that underpins tokenized assets has expanded dramatically.
That regulatory clarity has reduced the perceived risk around bringing traditional assets on-chain, opening the door for large-scale adoption by institutions that previously approached blockchain integrations cautiously.
Crypto Market Cap Could Exceed $22 Trillion by 2030
Beyond tokenized assets, ARK lays out one of its clearest forecasts for the crypto market itself, projecting that Bitcoin and smart contract networks will jointly dominate a multi-trillion-dollar digital asset landscape by 2030.
In the report, the firm predicts:
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Bitcoin market cap growing from ~$2 trillion to ~$16 trillion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of ~63%.
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Smart contract platform market cap reaching ~$6 trillion, driven by revenue-generating decentralized applications and expanding global demand for on-chain settlement.
Taken together, ARK’s projections imply a combined crypto market cap of roughly $22 trillion by the end of the decade, which is a more than a tenfold increase from current levels.
Why Tokenization Matters for Crypto’s Growth Trajectory
ARK Invest frames tokenization and crypto market growth as mutually reinforcing cycles. As trillions of dollars in traditional assets move on-chain, the settlement networks that support these assets, primarily Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, gain greater utility, monetary premium, and global relevance.
The report specifically states that Bitcoin could account for roughly 70% of the total crypto market by 2030, with smart contract networks making up the majority of the remainder.
This on-chain integration of real-world assets is also expected to boost demand for stablecoins and cross-chain liquidity, further strengthening the broader blockchain economy.
Source: https://coinpaper.com/13940/crypto-market-may-reach-22-t-by-2030-says-ark-invest
