For over a decade, I’ve worked across the health-tech landscape - first as an operator, now on the investing side. One trigger I’ve long watched for is a U.S. government-backed stablecoin or CBDC - a sign of legitimacy and emerging regulatory clarity that could finally open the door for web3 to begin to take hold in healthcare.

That door is now beginning to crack open. Here are a few early thoughts:

My take is slightly contrarian: onchain health records and tokenized patient data are tarpit ideas - today. They’ll have a place eventually - likely a decade or two from now - but they're not where adoption starts.

Early traction will come from two places:
(a) Online peer-to-peer support groups with embedded micropayments tied to engagement
(b) Payments infrastructure (e.g. the $1.9T in U.S. government healthcare spend processed annually)

Since (a) aligns more closely with the current web3 social stack where you're likely reading this, I’ll focus there for now.

You might ask: How is tokenization a 10x improvement for peer support groups?

Great question. On its own, a token adds little value over USD - unless it’s issued by a health plan or self-insured employer and integrated across the ecosystem of reimbursed digital health providers. These organizations already manage large, fragmented networks of digital health tools. A branded token would provide a materially more cohesive way to coordinate member engagement and distribute incentives.

While the holy grail would be capturing onchain engagement data to create a digital identity and longitudinal behavior profile, that crosses into PHI territory.