For starters, the crypto space suffers from widespread stigma. Talking to people outside crypto, it’s common to hear accusations that all projects are scams (unfortunately, still actual in many cases) and that the space is just “too degenerate” for most people’s tastes. Bad actors will inevitably operate in new, innovative industries, and the culture and ethos present in this space are precisely what make it welcoming to anyone and everyone. Regardless, one can’t deny that we have a massive PR problem on our hands that we need to address with 1) more institutional players entering the industry, and 2) stricter regulation (as counterintuitive as this is for a technology based on decentralization).

Secondly, there is a mismatch between the industry’s goals and the incentives offered to end-users to achieve said goals. A lot of “community building” is thrown around. Still, it’s not much of a community and not much of an end user if their only reason for participating is speculative – the potential to make “free money”. The space, in this case, suffers from severe myopia: while effi cient at driving short-term interest and hype, airdrops, pre-sales, and yields don’t build long-lasting user bases. They only last until the moment when “users” can cash out and forget they were ever holders of a token. Real communities and user loyalty are, and always will be, built on a good product.

The third obstacle on our path to the mainstream is a lack of product development. Or rather, lack of easy-to-use and intuitive UIs and UXs. To draw a parallel with Web2: we expect the end user to know Python and C++ to use our Microsoft Office package. Web3 products and services need to evolve. Wallet transfers should be straightforward; games should be fun to play; content-sharing platforms should offer high-quality content and make it easy to share. Economic rewards should be a bonus, not the prime driver of interest. The language needs to be simpler, the technology more accessible, and the processes more digestible. Until builders face this, we will be forever stuck selling to the same people in the same bubble of tech wizards, early adopters, and degenerate gamblers.

Does this mean there’s no hope for mainstream crypto? On the contrary, it means we have a clear goal and a means of getting there. It will just take time and effort.

Matko Hrvatin is a Business Development Specialist at margin.io, a German non-custodial, retainer-based market maker that specializes in high-frequency MM algorithms developed for hedge funds and deployed on token projects, boasting over 70 exchange integrations across spot and derivatives markets.