Looking For Adoption In All The Wrong Places?
Every week the Mosaic research team will delve into important topics within the cryptoasset space.
Jason Yannos (@Jyannos)
“Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,
Lookin’ for love in too many faces”
-Johnny Lee, “Lookin’ for Love”
Introduction
Despite the current information overload in the crypto ecosystem, there are only a handful of common themes that permeate every tweet, thread, and article. Of these themes, issues surrounding scaling of protocols and widespread user adoption are consistently at the forefront.
All protocols today face scaling issues where solutions are an utmost priority. At the same time, protocols also face go-to-market problems where users are needed for wide scale adoption. This makes both themes intertwined problems that ultimately co-exist as a central topic in many crypto-related discussions.
Discussions surrounding adoption are arguably subjective and often a very contentious topic of debate. Many people pontificate on what will ultimately ‘put gas on the fire’. For example, will mass adoption come from emerging markets seeking an efficient store of value or from the emergence of decentralized applications that will disrupt the current centralized incumbents and usher in future DApps like Dwitter, Dacebook, and Dinstagram?
No one can say with strong conviction currently what will truly be the catalyst to wide scale adoption of cryptocurrencies. Each protocol may have specific use cases but it is anyone’s guess and anyone’s game at this point as to what will get cryptocurrencies into the hands of billions of users.
A Major DApp Milestone
Last week marked the long-awaited official launch of Augur. The launch proved to be seamless, successfully surpassing user activity of one of the most popular DApps on the Ethereum network, CryptoKitties, by roughly 40 times. Although Augur is arguably on track to become the most widely used DApp on the Ethereum network, some serious improvements will need to be made to the user interface in order to get there.
At present, any user looking to use Augur needs to go through a 7-step process just to get it up and running:
While this process isn’t very different from using many other DApps on Ethereum today, it is clear that this complicated process of using DApps in their current state is a strong barrier to user entry and adoption.
The unbundling of the centralized web to the decentralized web will take time and require patience along the way as the process will undoubtedly be a messy one. But what if the major drivers of adoption are already in front of us? What if the major drivers of adoption are nothing more than a bridge between the centralized web and the decentralized web?
“Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places”
Alongside the release of Augur last week was the launch of Lolli, by Alex Adelman and team. Lolli has flipped the cashback rewards model on its head and rewards users with Bitcoin when you shop at your favourite stores through the Lolli browser extension.
While the application is still in its infancy, the range of merchants available on Lolli today is impressive including some big names such as Bloomingdales, Macys, and ClassPass, to name just a few. With time the list of merchants on Lolli will grow alongside the emergence of similar platforms and we can expect the number of merchants who accept Bitcoin for purchases will also grow making ecommerce as a whole a promising use case for wide-scale user adoption.
Shopping online and earning rewards aren’t new behaviours by any means, but allowing consumers to easily earn Bitcoin by building a bridge to connect users to the decentralized web through a product like Lolli is just one example of many other types of consumer products that could give the momentum needed to wide-scale user adoption of crypto.
Conclusion
Although it is impossible to determine exactly what will be the leading driver of wide-scale user adoption to the crypto ecosystem, it is highly likely that bridges in consumer products that connect users to the decentralized web from the centralized one will play an important role. As we move forward, it is essential for any participant of the crypto ecosystem to keep a finger on the pulse of the state of DApp development.
End of weekly research report
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This article is intended for informational purposes only. The views expressed herein are not and should not be construed as legal or investment advice or recommendations. Recipients of this article should do their own due diligence, considering their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives, and risk tolerance before investing. The individuals contributing to this article have positions in some or all of the assets discussed. This article is neither an offer, nor the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned herein.
