For over a decade, I’ve worked across the health-tech landscape - first as an operator, now on the investing side. One trigger I’ve long watched for is a U.S. government-backed stablecoin or CBDC - a sign of legitimacy and emerging regulatory clarity that could finally open the door for web3 to begin to take hold in healthcare.

That door is now beginning to crack open. Here are a few early thoughts:

My take is slightly contrarian: onchain health records and tokenized patient data are tarpit ideas - today. They’ll have a place eventually - likely a decade or two from now - but they're not where adoption starts.

Early traction will come from two places:
(a) Online peer-to-peer support groups with embedded micropayments tied to engagement
(b) Payments infrastructure (e.g. the $1.9T in U.S. government healthcare spend processed annually)

Since (a) aligns more closely with the current web3 social stack where you're likely reading this, I’ll focus there for now.

You might ask: How is tokenization a 10x improvement for peer support groups?

Great question. On its own, a token adds little value over USD - unless it’s issued by a health plan or self-insured employer and integrated across the ecosystem of reimbursed digital health providers. These organizations already manage large, fragmented networks of digital health tools. A branded token would provide a materially more cohesive way to coordinate member engagement and distribute incentives.

While the holy grail would be capturing onchain engagement data to create a digital identity and longitudinal behavior profile, that crosses into PHI territory. It's possible - but it'd have to be used only to track and incentivize engagement across digital health providers contracted with the plan, and not to put actual clinical notes onchain. But even without storing PHI or clinical data onchain, simply having a clearer view into engagement and being able to dynamically allocate incentives based on member risk profiles and to nudge desired behaviors would be a 10x improvement over today. The challenge will be designing mechanisms that drive real-world behavior change, while avoiding the peaks and troughs of token speculation.

Here’s a snapshot (all public info) from LoreHealth, a web2 startup whose model - rewarding patient engagement in a social, P2P environment - is a natural wedge for early web3 adoption. T

There’s a lot more to unpack here, but for now the takeaway is this:

The window of opportunity for web3 in healthcare is beginning to open - just a crack.

If you’re curious or want to jam on healthcare x web3, my Warpcast DCs are open.