The Long Road To Mass Adoption.

Blockchain faithfuls around the world are seething as I write this. The term “Web 2.5” is a tacit refusal to acknowledge the Promised Land of Web 3.0, actualized through the leap in technological capabilities heralded by Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper.

Except that Satoshi Nakamoto wasn’t the true herald of blockchain technology.

[Insert audible gasps of horror].

Like most of the blockchain narrative, the real facts are often obscured in favor of easily digestible concepts. Breaking down such a seemingly complex subject as blockchain technology to a layman requires a fair bit of paraphrasing.

Unfortunately, years of paraphrasing can result in essential elements of a message being lost in translation, rendering the true nature of things askew.

If any real progress is to be made in this industry, we need to examine things objectively, impartially, and critically to determine how to improve on our weaknesses and craft lasting solutions. So let’s start by debunking three popular myths about blockchain technology.

Myth #1: Satoshi Nakamoto invented the Blockchain.

This is akin to saying that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb or that Elon Musk founded Tesla. In the 2008 Bitcoin white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto simply built upon a foundation of ideas that had been publicly discussed as early as 1990 by a pair of Bellcore Labs scientists.

Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta were the first to ever work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks as part of a time-stamping project. Their publication, “How To Time-Stamp A Digital Document” was a forerunner to the Bitcoin white paper.

Myth #2: Bitcoin Was The First Decentralized Digital Currency.

In practice, this would be correct. However, the very first documented experiment aimed at creating a decentralized cryptocurrency as we know it today is attributed to Nick Szabo for the Bit Gold white paper written in 1998 — a full ten years before the Bitcoin white paper.

The system Szabo described incorporates many of the elements popularized by Bitcoin, such as mining, proof-of-work (PoW), trustless transfers and storage, and time-stamped blocks (sound familiar?).

The similarities to the Bitcoin white paper are so striking that Szabo has been theorized by some as the “real” Satoshi Nakamoto, although he has denied this.

Myth #3: Web3 Exists Through Blockchain Technology.

This is not so much a myth as it is a fallacy. The term “Web 3” has been abused to the point where it feels like just another buzzword. In the quest to onboard people and businesses, we always end up referring to blockchain technology as “Web 3." It’s way too catchy.

The concept lies at the very heart of discourse on blockchain technology, from the coding language, to the products and deliverables, down to marketing. Once this word loses its essence, it becomes very easy to miss the entire point of the conversation and end up with flawed expectations perceived through flawed logic.

The major elements of Web 3.0, as postulated by Gavin Wood, are Read-Write-Own. The distinctive feature of blockchain technology is the ability to “own” your data through trustless systems of decentralized applications (dApps).

Now, this all sounds fine and dandy in theory, but how does it work in practice today?

Decentralized applications are slowly growing. However, the technology still feels quirky. Although the dApps are functional and, in some cases, quite robust, the world has yet to witness any seamless integration.

This is why you need a special browser or extension like Metamask or Phantom to access token-gated platforms.

This is why, for all their quirks and bugs, millions of people still use these “Web 3” browsers because they have no choice.

You cannot open up Chrome or Safari on your PC or mobile phone and connect your blockchain wallet to a dApp without jumping through hoops that create friction in your user experience.

A noteworthy exception is the Brave Wallet/Browser package which isn’t universally supported on dApps unlike it’s famous cousins, Metamask & Coinbase wallet.

Friction isn’t the only issue with “Web 3” today. The pseudo-monopoly created by the lack of access to a wide range of user-friendly portals to access dApps has snowballed into real privacy concerns.

For instance, Consensys, the developers of Metamask, one of the most popular crypto wallets and browser-integrated platforms, recently updated their privacy policy to allow them scrape users’ IP data and ethereum addresses.

They essentially map all users’ transactions to their IP address from the first moment of interaction with their software. This leaves users wide open to all sorts of privacy infringements, ranging from illegal doxxing to geographical censorship.

Is this a trustworthy system? Is this “Web 3” as described by Gavin Wood?

Today, we discuss the mass adoption of blockchain technology like some inevitable cultural reset that will sweep the world like a wave. It is exciting to imagine it that way, but that is simply detached from our reality.

The blockchain industry is currently in a painful iteration process where we have a chance to “debug” before shipping our product.

This brings us to the crux of the topic: products.

Viable, innovative, and staple products are the key to unlocking the full potential of blockchain technology. We see hundreds of shiny new products launch on the blockchain every day. Many of these are dressed up as NFTs in hopes that the novelty will attract users (read, “buyers”).

Inevitably, they fail because the model is broken. NFTs are excellent vehicles for businesses to market their products to a new audience but fall flat when sold as stand-alone products (think of PFPs with staking, merchandising, tokenomics and other tired “utility” models).

This system will never break into the mainstream, so builders need to start thinking differently.

A successful product identifies a pain point—new or existing—and fashions a solution to solve the problem with maximum ease and minimal expense of resources. This model, as simple as it seems, is the key to mass adoption.

Blockchain product builders should aspire to create products that people will use every single day, to the point where it feels like a natural extension of their daily activities.

Case Study: Apple Inc.

Regardless of the market niche, Apple always enters with a lean, mean computing machine.

From the iPod to AirPods, from the iMac to the MacBook, from Apple Music to the Apple TV, and from FaceTime to iMessage, Apple built generations of products that have successfully created a technological and cultural reset over the past two decades.

Apple device adoption did not occur overnight or as a result of government intervention. It happened through an intentional process of recognizing and alleviating user pain points and integrating Apple-branded solutions into a functional $2.36 trillion ecosystem.

Case Study: Google

Google started with search engine technology, a very simple premise that placed it in direct competition with platforms like Bing, Yahoo! Search, DuckDuckGo, etc. Featuring heavily in the Web 2.0 narrative of Read-Write interactions, Google pioneered the ad-driven revenue model.

The company further distinguished itself as an industry giant by building products that created solutions in online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.

Mass adoption of Google didn’t happen because it was the “best” search engine. The company harnessed the power of online visibility and internet connectivity to solve everyday problems and empower individuals and businesses, making it the poster child of the digital era.

History tends to repeat itself through patterns. The Big Tech monopoly led to privacy and censorship concerns, which are often used to further the argument in favor of blockchain technology.

However, if blockchain product builders are not intentional about deploying this technology in the true spirit of decentralized authority and autonomy, we will simply end up calling the same dog by a different name.

History has shown us that mass adoption of any given technology is a long process. It also shows those who pay close attention that the answer lies in incorporating new technologies to solve age-old problems with greater efficiency. This is why the current business model of treating blockchain technology as a product in and of itself is bound to fail.

True Web 3 technology is trustless, seamless, and should be largely open-sourced in order to create an environment where users have a diverse range of options to interact with the blockchain. As it stands, we are only halfway to the Promised Land.

There is hope, though. Forward-thinking teams are designing solutions to address the problem of seamless integration of dApps with Web-2-native digital systems. A great example is Dream OS.

The road from Web 2.0 to Web 2.5 (present day) has been almost two decades in the making, only picking up steam over the last ten years. The path ahead is not an easy one, but with the guidance of our past as an intelligent civilization, I have faith that one day our world will be changed by true Web 3.0 technology.