PANews reported on January 16 that Wall Street investment bank Bernstein said in a research report on Monday that this year will lay the foundation for a decade-long "golden age" of innovation in cryptocurrency applications, as cryptocurrencies will shift from fat infrastructure themes to fat application themes. Bernstein expects total cryptocurrency revenue to grow 16 times in the next 10 years, from about $25 billion in 2023 to about $400 billion in 2033. Of the estimated $400 billion revenue pool, "decentralized blockchain-driven revenue" will account for nearly half of the total revenue pool, compared to just 15% currently. Driven by "innovations in blockchain scalability and application growth across financial services and consumer technology," on-chain revenue will increase from less than $4 billion today to nearly $200 billion in the next decade. Consumer and financial applications are expected to account for 75% of on-chain revenue, compared to about 40% last year, the report said.
The report added that among on-chain financial applications, decentralized exchanges (DEX), lending, and structured/tokenized products are expected to be the main revenue drivers. NFT-based gaming revenue is expected to be the largest driver of growth for on-chain consumer applications, while for off-chain revenue, Bernstein expects institutional services (including prime brokerage, custody, and market making) to be the growth driver.