Crypto is clearly attempting to cross the chasm into mainstream life and is stalling out, but why? Why don't we have a world where value flows as easily as information and anyone can pay or invest in anyone at any time?

Over the next month I'll be releasing a series of articles covering the improvements necessary to cross this chasm and take crypto mainstream.

As I see it now, the two biggest problems are UX and Safety.

UX is the obvious one - we continually have more apps on more chains in more places, causing the UX of most crypto wallets to be way too complicated.

Why do we still have this UX complexity? At first, it seems like a technical issue, we need better devs building more chain abstraction and intent networks to carry out user demands. This is a good start, but after talking to a number of wallets, I've realized there's a deeper issue: user safety.

Most wallets don't want to simplify and hide the underlying tech, because there are many risks involved in doing so - chain failures, hacks, user errors. Wallets don't want to have user funds disappear and be held responsible for it.

If you think about any wallet wanting to abstract away the chains, a number of problems surface:

First, the user issues:

• What's the best chain to keep funds on? Should it be the most secure chain? Should it be the cheapest to use? Should it be the one with the most bridges?

• What if users send funds on a chain the wallet doesn't support? How do users know what chains the wallet supports? How can they tell if their friends wallets are compatible?

Secondly, there are the chain risks:

• What happens if a chain fails? Do users lose all their funds?

• If a wallet wants to add DeFi applications or even simple ways to earn interest, how does it ensure users funds aren't hacked or lost in the process?

What are the solutions? Here's a quick overview:

• UX Solutions

  • Better interop standards:

    • Addresses that include destination chain information so wallets can make informed decisions before sending funds

    • Solver / Intent networks

    • Bridge aggregators

  • Just in Time Bridging - Where apps can accept funds from any chain, and they are bridged/swapped automatically to the correct token on the correct chain.

  • Better connections between app and wallet:

    • Much of the friction can be attributed to the exponential number of new apps and wallets, and their inability to talk to each other correctly. Wallets should know how to inform an app about tokens available on other chains.

  • SDK's that handle all of the above, so we're not re-inventing the UX wheel with every single app.

• Safety Solutions

  • Better insurance:

    • Easier integration points, so users can purchase coverage for all their assets with one click.

    • More coverage of more protocols - how can this be done seamlessly, can aggregators make this happen?

    • Cheaper coverage - There's no reason users should have to pay 5%+ per year to insure against chain failure or failure of major proven protocols like Aave/Uniswap.

  • Better hack prevention:

    • Services which can automatically detect possible hacks in progress and front-run them, or trigger circuit breakers to prevent an entire app from being drained.

  • Risk Analysis systems:

    • Having all risk information in one place is a very useful tool. Especially if it's available just in time as you're about to take an action.

Some articles may cover a specific area, while others may discuss a specific product.

If you're building in the crypto space and want to help crypto cross the chasm, subscribe below to learn about solutions you can adopt, and what still needs to be built. If you'd like to chat or have an article written about what you're building send me an email at tim@blueyard.com, or ping me on Twitter / Farcaster / Telegram at @timjrobinson and we can discuss it!