On October 17th-20th, the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition met in Boston for the third time. Enthusiasm emanated from every corner as the tide slowly turns toward marijuana being accepted across America.

“What’s exciting, in a sense, is that yes, there is money to be made,” Giadha Aguirre de Carcer, Founder of New Frontier Data, told Yahoo Finance. “But there is also that great double bottom line, meaning we can make money in this industry, and candidly, still do good.

“To be at the forefront of seeing how this plant is [seeing] not just recreational use, which is great, but [also] true medical impact.”

Leaders from nascent blockchain companies, pharmaceuticals companies, and hemp manufacturers showcased both new cannabis products and a total rise in industry output — explaining that cannabis legalization is creating an emerging public market that is taking root in the finance industry.

“In 2018 in the United States, we project retail sales to reach about $7 billion,” Carcer said. “And we also expect by 2025 that number will go up to almost $25 billion.”

The legal U.S. cannabis market is projected to reach more than $20 billion by 2022, according to the “The State of Legal Marijuana Markets, Sixth Edition” (SOLMM6) released by Arcview Market Research in partnership with BDS Analytics. This growth has the potential to generate more than 467,000 full-time equivalent jobs in 2022.

And despite federal prohibition, the SOLMM6 asserted that the U.S. legal cannabis industry experienced 31% growth in 2017. Arcview forecasts that the continuing state-by-state roll-out of medical-use programs and then adult-use legalization will bring a 22% compound annual growth rate to the market over that five-year forecast period

“I’ve been in the business about ten years and so I’ve seen it develop,” Arby Barroso, Co-Founder of Green Roads World, said in an interview. “And from about five years ago to today, the market share the cannabis or CBD business is getting into is just extraordinary.”

WATCH MORE: The cannabis tech boom is only beginning