Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has big expectations for this decade as reflected in his big 11 predictions.

According to him, we will see a more scalable blockchain in terms of layer two solutions with privacy features with about 1 billion users by the end of the decade.

Scalability he says means new applications will start to develop more rapidly. As for privacy, it will be integrated into “one of the dominant chains in the 2020s,” projects Armstrong adding a “privacy coin will also get mainstream adoption”.

While some will gain a lot, consolidation is also in order. Coinbase CEO said,

“We will see consolidation of chains (in developer mindshare, user base, and market cap) in the decade to come.”

This will mean, those that make the most progress will see most gains. And those that don’t will get consolidated which could take the forms of M&A and even a reverse-fork. According to him, there will be many tokens but only a handful of chains.

Speculation and investment contribute the most to the crypto activity and this is expected to continue in the 2020s. But the best new companies would be that will be about driving the utility phase such as staking, borrow/lend/margin, debit cards, earn, and commerce, he said.

As such, we will see the rise of the crypto startup, just like we saw internet startup idea kicked off by the dot com craze. These startups, Armstrong says will raise money using crypto, issue tokens to early adopters, and bring together global communities and marketplaces at a pace not seen with traditional startups.

But they will also evolve to resemble the market structure of the traditional financial world that will mean SEC or others would create a crypto index fund for retail investors.

As for adoption, it will happen in emerging markets where the “existing financial systems are a much bigger pain point,” has high inflation rates and large remittance markets. Armstrong who also founded GiveCrypto predicts,

“In the 2020’s, I think we will see cryptocurrency adoption in emerging markets scale to hundreds of millions of users, with at least one country ‘tipping' so that the majority of transactions in their economy happen in cryptocurrency.”

Most crypto startups will not be the only ones to embrace crypto but larger institutions will also come on board. Another of his big prediction for the next decade is:

“Most funds will keep a portion of their assets in cryptocurrencies, partially due to the uncorrelated returns. Something like 90% of the money in the world is locked up in institutions, so this will likely drive a lot of demand for crypto assets.”

Governments will also join-in in a big way. China has already made its move, the US could also implement their own digitized dollar using blockchain or turn to USD Coin, envisions Armstrong.

Overall, decentralization, crypto-to-crypto, will grow into a separate world. Here, DEXs, Dapps, DeFi, and non-custodial wallets will grow and will be regulated like software companies, he forecasts.

As decentralized crypto-economy grows, it will really start to move the needle on global economic freedom.

And “more than half the world’s billionaires will be from cryptocurrency,” is what Coinbase CEO sees in the 2020s.

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