Have you ever manually chosen between Azure and AWS while browsing on X – or chosen a payment processor to route your online Apple Pay transactions to? Do you check the SSL certificate of AliExpress or Amazon to make your shopping more secure?
Great technology is invisible. Steve Jobs was right years ago when he called for prioritization the intersection of technology and the humanities. But when it comes to blockchain, it’s quite the opposite.
Lost in the rubble of wallets, exchanges, bridges, tokens and smart contracts, Web3 seems to be wandering in circles and retracing its steps. In an effort to innovate, it misses the opportunity to address the fundamental needs of the consumer experience: ease of use, reliability, intuitiveness and seamlessness.
Technologically speaking, blockchain is sufficiently advanced; it’s time to build a useful application layer.
Poor UX causes a drop in retention
According to a recent report According to Sequoia Capital, the average retention rate of existing tech apps within one month is 63%. Ethereum dApps hardly exceed 16%.
For those who pay attention to UX research, it’s not surprising. Blockchain users are constantly less satisfied than their counterparts outside the chain, with alone a third of the dApp activities completed in less than ten minutes and negative reviews form a majority for Web3 applications in the App Store. Almost 90% of consumers abandoning mobile apps due to poor user experience. Yes, a small portion of your audience may prioritize decentralization and Web3 ethics, but overall, speed, convenience, affordability, straightforwardness, and intuitive interfaces come first.
A slew of layer 2 solutions, such as optimistic rollups or zero-knowledge validity proofs, attempt to address scalability issues, extracting value from transaction orders, fluctuating transaction costs, and slow execution times. This is an important advance regarding the technical ills of blockchain. Still, implementing layer 2 blockchains does not fully solve the other application layer-related elements of the problem. There are few user-facing dApps, which is a big blow to the ecosystem.
While a blockchain fan may be convinced that the end justifies the means, an average user without a technical background will likely discard the technology if they struggle with the interface. Otherwise, centralized exchanges wouldn’t have dominated the sector – why open a custodial wallet when you have cold ledgers, private keys and peer-to-peer or decentralized alternatives with more sovereignty and security, especially post-FTX?
And yet the centralized exchanges are currently responsible for that 91.4% of spot trading volume and almost 98%, including derivatives, meaning the average consumer values usability over security.
Add to this a steep learning curve, a need for intuitive and thorough introductory guides, and several possible failure scenarios, and it becomes clear where the skepticism towards blockchain comes from. For example, Robinhood, one of the most popular trading apps in the US, does not support USDT but allows opening USDC wallets and sending Tether to exchange-held accounts, which is not available to regular users.
However, a less adept customer will only discover the difference between the stablecoins on page 3 of the FAQ – after their money has already been irrevocably burned. While developers can push new scientific boundaries in the field of zero-knowledge proofs, this is unlikely to convince such a user to move forward with crypto.
Building from the ground up: A user-driven blueprint
The industry craves a slow, evolutionary approach over revolutionary shifts. We need vertical separation or developer focus on the blockchain application layer. Providing a better solution to a smaller problem is a healthier approach than offering a weaker solution to a larger problem.
For example, a modular approach to system design can promote the independent development of blockchain components without compromising the stability of the overall ecosystem. Responsive valid proofing (a combination of optimistic rollups and ZK valid proofs) lowers cost barriers. It increases time efficiency, while a decentralized sequencer network ensures fairness and scalability in transaction execution. All these consumer-facing technologies already exist, but only a few projects are implementing them.
Web3 has long isolated itself from solving problems within a limited audience of crypto enthusiasts; now is the right time to adopt a different vision and support visionaries and innovators to apply its application to real-life problems rather than self-imposed financial challenges. Blockchain is a powerful tool – we just need to make it more accessible.