Superstructure by Ben Basche

Aug 14

Noncustodial finance is crypto's way across the chasm

While DeFi, NFTs and the Metaverse form the basis of an exciting new crypto-native internet, crypto/web3 as a going concern (let alone a new technological paradigm) won't be sustained unless it connects with the needs of everyday people and breaks out of its own self-referential niche. Luckily for everyone who has pitched the crypto financial utopia at Thanksgiving, after years of only being the “future of finance,” it seems that crypto is finally starting to see a flourishing of applica...

Superstructure by Ben Basche

May 29

The Wallet-Centric Customer Experience Stack

As web3 matures, so does its infrastructure and tooling, and one of the most interesting developments lately has been the emergent stack forming around an embedded wallet of one kind or another. Dozens of companies and projects are vying to arm the dapp developers of the world with a seamless onboarding experience with (mostly) non-custodial guarantees. And while I’ve been vocal about the fact that improving the UX of crypto alone won’t solve mass adoption when value risk looms so large, tool...

Superstructure by Ben Basche

Nov 4

Return on composability

From wallets and key management, to on-ramps and gas fees, there is still a lot of deployment to be done before web3 is approachable by normal people. That said, I mostly consider these questions to be largely execution problems running through some known currents like layer 2s and layer 3s, smart contract wallets, MPC, batch transactions, social recovery and sign on etc. Our smartest people are on it, and basically we are on our way to having our Ethereum values cake and eating our web2 user...