Thanks to the Placeholder investment team and Tim Robinson for the discussions here, our conversations inspired some of these takeaways.
Programmable and verifiable on-chain actions should make applications easier, more intuitive, and safer to use for consumers since they remove any ambiguity that is associated with human middlemen. However, we consistently see the opposite result, as is evident by how infrastructure-heavy the industry is. The reason web3 is harder, less intuitive, and perceived as a risky platform to use is because we build from an infrastructure-first mindset and are yet to implement basic design principles that provide users with the confidence to utilize web3-native applications.
Normie users’ gateway to interact on-chain needs to have minimal touchpoints to get started. In the current state, most competitive wallet services require 7+ complicated touchpoints until a user can even begin performing on-chain financial actions. It’s hard enough to understand what “transacting on-chain” actually means, and introducing complicated steps such as saving seed phrases or on-ramping fiat with awfully high fees doesn’t make this journey any easier. Furthermore, on-chain identity remains an unresolved issue, but a long string of characters secured by a private key and seed phrase is certainly not a user-friendly solution. Until an elegant solution for integrating an individual’s web2 identity on-chain can be pioneered, innovative wallet teams such as Sui and Aptos are working on zk-enabled or keyless wallet log-in schemes, respectively, allowing users to retain their familiar web2 internet accounts while transacting on-chain.
The leap to begin interacting on-chain is massive because of a lack of familiarity with the technology. Let’s not make it harder by introducing complex terminology and features. Let’s also not accept these design standards as acceptable because a deeply-motivated crypto-maximalist is willing to overlook these obvious hurdles. We’re building for everyone, not an interested few.
Another pressing area of concern is the incredibly high learning curve and lack of security features that users encounter, leading to a lack of confidence when using web3 wallets. In web2 financial environments, basic tools that help walk the user through an application or fundamental features such as insurance give a new user confidence and help the user establish trust in the service. However, web3 applications assume a crypto-native user, leaving normie users with virtually no options to onboard onto these apps. Innovative implementations of chain abstraction coupled with principles such as intuitive walk-through features within an app and insurance for interacting with risky chains will take us a long way in designing intuitive web3 gateways for normie users.
The applications vs. infrastructure debate is one of the most redundant in the industry, but if we do feel that infrastructure is at a point where we can support a new class of applications, let’s ensure we are building with a user- and design-first approach.
The views and opinions expressed on this article are solely those of the original author and mentioned contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Placeholder Management LLC or its team.
