Digital Asset Market Evolution
Kaal · 2020
The market for digital assets has evolved since its inception in 2009. Its rapid proliferation in 2016-18 was followed by significant downward corrections in 2018-19. The article evaluates the central stages of the evolution of the market in digital assets and the affected market participants. It presents and compares market data for initial coin offerings, equity offerings, and initial exchange offerings in blockchain and digital asset startups. The author examines data trends and their underlying causes in the evolution of the market for digital assets. Particular emphasis is placed on the emerging market for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and its role in the evolution of digital assets. The article examines data to evaluate the feasibility of a DeFi market evolution in the decentralized market infrastructure environment of the early 2020s. Key Words: Digital Assets, Decentralized Finance, Initial Coin Offering, Blockchain, Startup, Decentralized Commerce, Reputation Verification, Emerging Technology, Crypto Economics, Token Models, Incentive Design, Tokens, Equity, Distributed Ledger Technology, Decentralized Infrastructure ** Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis, USA). The author is on the board of directors of the Emerging Technology Association in Zug, Switzerland. He is also a founding member of the DevDAO and routinely advises digital asset businesses and startups, crypto hedge funds, digital asset exchanges, and policy makers. The author is grateful for outstanding research assistance from Hayley Howe and research librarian assistance from Nicole Kinn. The author did not receive any form of financial incentive for authoring this article. 1 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3606663 DIGITAL ASSET MARKET EVOLUTION JEL Categories: K20, K23, K32, L43, L5, O31, O32
Cite: Kaal, Digital Asset Market Evolution (2020). SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3606663
PDF sha256: d1d4a15a293b715bb6a5a32e689f59c3a1587915039ba9a1cf4eeb8ee2a1e57c