Accelerating from speculation to real-world utility

The flood of capital into crypto created an explosion of speculation.
Now, that speculatory wave is giving way to a wave characterized by real-world utility.

One of crypto’s most common industry-wide critiques was that web3 products were ‘solutions in search of problems’. Innovators knew that crypto had clear benefits over previous technologies, but products needed time to test fit with their intended markets.

While there were inevitably some products and solutions that did not address clear customer needs, the growing fusion of web2 and web3 indicates that crypto is here to stay. With the benefit of time and experience, it has become clear where blockchain technologies can solve real user problems throughout B2C and B2B value chains. 

Today, the industry has an opportunity to accelerate from the first wave of speculation into the second wave of utility. This new era will see web3 seeming more as a set of blockchain-enabled solutions that address real-world problems.

As we make this transition, it shouldn’t surprise us if terms like ‘blockchain’ and ‘web3’ move into the background. This is sometimes compared to how users of the internet have no concept of http. Consumers don’t necessarily need to know that they’re using blockchain when this technology stack powers the products and solutions they use. They’ll simply benefit from more seamless and secure experiences.

In the future, we believe that blockchain will become so embedded in financial and non-financial worlds that users may not even need to know that they’re interacting with it. The next wave will see crypto make this transition, where crypto moves from being in the foreground into the background. This is simply a reflection that blockchain technologies, with their potential for faster, frictionless, and more secure transactions, will become normalized. For example, in the payments use case, when a  blockchain can provide a cheaper, faster, and more reliable vehicle to do that, then customers will use it. Ultimately, businesses and their consumers will focus more on functionality and benefits rather than the underlying technologies powering these products.