# Crypto UX actually isn't that bad Source: https://x.com/knowerofmarkets/status/1825307273607917967 ## Summary The author argues that crypto UX is not much worse than most everyday internet activity, and that what is missing is a compelling reason for people to use it. Early onboarding attempts through DeFi, NFTs and meme coins each fell short: DeFi was boring and rewarded either large capital or constant market attention, NFTs were expensive or unappealing, and meme coins depended on new buyers arriving. Prediction markets were described as easy to grasp but less viral, while DePIN was called boring outside a few verticals, and Robinhood's success was attributed partly to a favorable macro backdrop of ZIRP and post-pandemic volatility. ## Article Crypto has tried to onboard "the masses" with DeFi and NFTs, but there were a few major issues preventing this from happening. Our solutions aren't really developed and we're kind of just blindly throwing darts to see if any of this sticks. DeFi was too boring and even when it did gamify something, you had to either spend lots of money to participate or be smart enough / plugged in 24/7 to do well against market participants that do this everyday. NFTs were too expensive or extremely ugly, resulting in people being priced out of a community or just turned off because the best "art" we could offer were bored apes and lazy lions. Not sure if meme coins are the correct solution to this onboarding problem, they still face a couple issues. People are dependent on someone coming in after them and buying their bags to enter the community & price going down hurts the community's "vibes" even if no one will admit it. Prediction markets are a good example of using crypto rails for something that's easy to grasp, kind of like if you had a sports betting app that only accepted crypto. It's definitely adoption but it isn't as memetic like these other categories. DePIN is nice because crypto incentives can enable much faster progress in niche industries, but most of DePIN is very boring except for a few verticals (walk-to-earn, vape-to-earn, etc.) and won't onboard high schoolers in the same way NFTs could have. One of the reasons Robinhood was so successful was through its zero free trading and clean user experience, but it also had the massive tailwind of ZIRP and post-pandemic market volatility to make day trading seem way cooler than it is. Crypto UX actually isn't that bad relative to most things people do on the internet everyday, we're just missing some kind of wind in our sails that can showcase why this all matters - even if the best onboarding experience we can provide is making people a lot of money just for holding coins or doing stupid things on-chain. ## Comments **timdaub.eth**: One can only hope that this wind ends up being the crazy population control/manipulation that is going to be attempted by the big social networks before the US elections. **zinkk.eth**: I really don't agree that crypto's problem is that it's boring... A lot of people are trying too much to entertain in crypto, and I think they are missing the point. Crypto can be boring, as long as it solves a problem really well, that nobody needs to think about any more. And UX is the barrier why we still have to think about wallets, and seed phrases, and exchange off/off-ramps... It has to be the obvious choice for people for a specific use case, and not some kind of perpetually entertaining device. **macbudkowski.eth**: +1 to zinkk.eth. Stablecoins are boring and they're one of the primary use cases of crypto. I don't think that the UX is the barrier, though. I believe the problem is solving a real pain. People from high-inflation countries like Argentina or Turkey had enough incentive to create wallets and start using stablecoins, even despite the bad UX. In 2021, despite much worse UX than we have today, we saw tons of retail because crypto (at least theoretically) solved the problem of "getting rich quickly." Even Kiwi is an interesting example. Some would say we are boring because we just help people find news, essays, and products. Even the UI is very toned down for web3 standards. But keeping up with crypto is a real pain, especially for people who work here full time, so that's why we had some growth (though ofc we're still far from being an industry juggernaut like ZORA or Farcaster) **zinkk.eth**: @mac UX is relative. If you're solving a novel problem in a novel way, that there isn't any solution for, then users will be more forgiving on the UX (since you are the only option). But if you are aiming to solve an existing problem in a better way, then UX plays a more important role. This is the reason why people in US/EU prefer their native payment solutions over crypto - because crypto still has worse UX than native banking apps in this part of the world. But in Africa and parts of Asia they are completely excluded from the banking system, therefore crypto's UX is compared to no UX. **zinkk.eth**: > In 2021, despite much worse UX than we have today, we saw tons of retail because crypto (at least theoretically) solved the problem of "getting rich quickly." I think people just got bored during that time and rollercoasters weren't available :D **macbudkowski.eth**: @zinkk.eth Agree that the UX is relative. It's very hard to make the crypto UX better than using a neobank like Revolut. Not even sure if it's possible. One opening here is adding more utility. Revolut offers me a 2% yield on my EUR. Not bad, but in crypto I could get around 7-10% on my USDC. So if we manage to show people: "Hey, the UX is the same, but you can get 3-4X higher yield if you set up a wallet and it takes only 3 clicks", then we can win.