Crypto Must Embrace the Fringe to Win Over the Mainstream

In the eyes of mainstream users, these new innovations initially look and perform worse than existing offerings.

Over time, if the product is truly disruptive, the mainstream users will realize that they too want the new features, and will come to demand them as well.

Crypto entrepreneurs can follow this same roadmap to achieve mainstream adoption.

At their core, blockchains are shared computing systems that users can trust to record data and execute code as instructed.

While it is easy - and perhaps characteristic - for crypto entrepreneurs to assume instant universal demand for a financial system built around these features, there remain significant roadblocks to mainstream adoption.

It makes little sense for these types of users to switch over to a nascent technology that offers worse performance on the metrics they care about.

Infrastructure must improve to ensure would-be crypto users can actually access the internet at times when they need it the most.

Developers continue to build "Layer 2" solutions to enhance mainstream useability.

Ultimately, for crypto to move sustainably into the mainstream, it must provide utility beyond mere speculation.

Once these products gain a foothold among those "Fringe" users, mainstream users will eventually take notice and come to want certain of their features as well.