As the crypto market heads into the decade of the 2020s, many are wondering what will be the spark that drives further adoption of cryptocurrencies. What many fail to see is that the pieces for mass adoption have slowly been put in place over the last year and a half, and it is likely that we will begin to see the fruit of those labors in 2020.

When it comes to institutional investors, while many are wondering what will bring them to the space, those in the know realize that they are already here. According to a recent survey by State Street, 94 percent of State Street clients hold digital assets or related products (e.g. bitcoin futures) and 38 percent of them said they will increase their allocation of digital assets in 2020.

A separate survey of endowment funds indicated that 94% of them invested in crypto assets over the past year while others were lamenting the ‘Crypto Winter.’ This is just another clear example of the smart money finding great deals in a down market.

And then there has been the recent rapid rise of multiple big-player Bitcoin derivatives exchanges. No longer is it just the CME as the lone player in the regulated world of the US financial markets. With Bakkt fully rolling out its suite of services and Eris X coming online, this is likely just the beginning of full institutional involvement in the crypto space.

But what about smaller retail investors who don’t like to trade?

2019 saw the large scale roll-out of crypto lending platforms such as Celsius, BlockFi and Nexo, which offer crypto holders the opportunity to earn interest or take out loans on their crypto holdings.

With negative interest rates currently running rampant in the global financial ecosystem, its only a matter of time before savvy investors discover the opportunity that the budding crypto DeFi ecosystem has to offer them to preserve their wealth.

Millennials are set to inherit the largest amount of generational wealth transference that has ever existed, and they are increasingly turned off by the old guard financial system and the stock market that has led to several large boom and bust cycles just within the millennials lifetimes.

If you combine this with the rise of the internet in the past 30 years, this generation that is now ascending to societal power is more likely to be willing to transfer to a new system of internet-based money and financial transactions that more align with the borderless, global nature of the world wide web.

The pieces are in place for a global transformation to occur. The wheels have been set in motion and it is likely that there is no stopping this new movement. Similar to a century ago, the 20’s look to be a pivotal decade in the development of the global socio-economic ecosystem. The blockchain revolution is just getting started, and soon the masses will begin to notice.