Grayscale Research Director Zach Pandl: Public Chains Will Deeply Enter Finance Within Five Years
Grayscale Research Director Zach Pandl told Cointelegraph that public blockchains and digital assets will play a major role in the financial markets over the next five to ten years, with a scale larger than most people envision. He also discussed whether Bitcoin has bottomed out around $58,000, the Clear Act, and the balance sheets of leveraged Bitcoin companies on the Trade Secrets program.
His existing narrative frames tokenization as a decades-long capital shift. Grayscale's research highlights Ethereum, Solana, Canton, BNB, Avalanche, and Chainlink, connecting the narrative of "over $300 trillion in assets on-chain"; Boston Consulting and Ripple have projected the scale of tokenization to grow from about $27 billion to nearly $19 trillion by 2033. Pandl stated that Ethereum is the largest vessel for stablecoins, tokenization, and on-chain finance, and that the Clear Act, if passed, will accelerate issuance; he described Canton as a near-term target for institutional permissioned chains, while Avalanche subnets are in a hybrid phase, with fully open global on-chain finance still not ready in terms of technology and institutions. He singled out AI-related protocols, stating that this segment could see trillions in assets, citing examples like Bittensor, NEAR, and Worldcoin.
Grayscale manages multiple spot and thematic trusts, and the research director's five-year window aligns with the product shelf: Bitcoin is priced as digital gold, with incremental stories in tokenization tracks and compliance frameworks. The Clear Act is stalled in the Senate over the 60-vote threshold and stablecoin reward controversies, which he listed as two conditions for whether the market has bottomed, the other being whether companies like Strategy can stabilize their balance sheets.
Five to ten years is not a K-line target but a timeline for migrating the settlement layer from accounts to a shared state. Products are already being sold according to this timeline.
The market mechanism is narrative configuration. Buy-side expresses funding channels for "financial infrastructure upgrades" in trusts and ETFs; sell-side positions public chains as the asset managers of future market operating systems. Funds are shifting from single Bitcoin to a basket of platform tokens and thematic trusts. Beneficiaries are Grayscale, which already has issuance licenses and research branding; those under pressure are short-term traders who only operate on a four-year cycle and do not buy into the settlement layer narrative. Event-driven narratives are interview slices, not new custody scale disclosures.
Writing the next decade as a major role is meant to permit today's configurations. The volume of on-chain finance still depends on whether the legislation and institutional systems can read each other.
Source: Public Information
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Pandl translates Grayscale's shelf into a macro timeline. Bitcoin is already in the trillion-dollar range, and the research department must tell new stories for the next layer: tokenization, stablecoin tracks, AI protocols. $300 trillion is the scale of global financial stock, not next year's inflow; $19 trillion is the consulting firm's 2033 scenario. He describes Ethereum as the largest vessel because USD stablecoins and DeFi are already there, not because of optimal throughput. Canton appearing in the near-term portfolio indicates he acknowledges the first wave will be permissioned chains, with open mainnets as the second wave.
The capital path is trust fee rates. Grayscale relies on embedding narratives into tradable shares for fees, and the research director's interview serves as a roadshow. If the Clear Act passes, token issuers and custodians will sell products better; however, the story can still be told, just with a delayed timeline. Strategy stabilizing its balance sheet is concerned about leveraged companies becoming sources of selling pressure, disrupting the linear imagination of "institutional entry." AI protocols being singled out for trillions is to open another thematic bucket beyond Bitcoin.
The analogy is that internet infrastructure funds in the 1990s wrote TCP/IP as the financial underlying. Today's positioning of public chains is close to applying for clearinghouse licenses, not having replaced them yet. The industry phase is about expanding narratives and controlling product catalogs. Whoever can write five to ten years as inevitable can keep platform tokens in core holdings. Institutions want privacy and identity, while retail needs permissionless access; these two demands are temporarily satisfied by different chains.
Structural changes are a preview of the reconstruction of the industrial chain. The mechanism is that once settlement rights can be programmed on shared ledgers, the intermediary layers of custody, registration, and brokerage will be repriced. Pricing power shifts from exchange-matched parts to chains and license combinations that can legally issue tokenized securities. A five-year window is enough for one legislative cycle but not enough for a clearing system replacement.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Write the settlement layer ten years from now as today's holding rationale
The largest vessel is not necessarily the fastest, but it has already docked the most USD
Permissioned chains will lead, while open mainnets wait for institutions to resolve identity issues