Onboarding the next Billion Users
The era of Internet Scale Dapps
No one interacts with blockchains as a whole.
Every blockchain interaction is always and only one transaction at a time. Increasing the experience of transacting is the BILLION DOLLAR problem.
What is a blockchain if no one can transact with it?
Transactions need to get smarter, not blockchains. That is, if we want to really bring the next billion users, if we want to solve real problems and not only computer science problems.
Well intentioned but misguided attempts at fixing Transactions.
New L1s, fancy L2s on L1 with higher throughput, all this a great and all, but what about upgrading the transactions to do what user wants. Sometimes we get so lost in the forest that we don’t notice that its trees all around.
Account Abstraction in Eth, gas sponsorship from Sol and other chains, aim to do this. They suck. Look at the user profiles. Crypto made by nerds for nerds. Look at the type of dapps, mostly apps promising high yield. You need to lure users with the promise big profit to compensate for the horrible experience of transacting. Instead of the roundabout ways of making blockchains scale with better consensus (some of which is absolutely essential), why not focus on transactions as well. For what would the best blockchain do with users unable to transact, without users?
Another distraction in making crypto work for billion users is the often used distinction of defi versus non-defi! There is no such distinction for any successful app; how can any app thrive in the market, even in our iOS/Android App store apps, without being economically viable and profitable to last years. Financial success inevitably underpins the success of best apps in the world, means users really love transacting with those apps over their competitors.
Just make apps work for users is the real problem. Apps that work for users versus Apps that do not: is the real and only distinction.
Every non-defi app is ultimately, also a defi app. This is the magic of tokenization: opening up new avenues of monetization of transactions that were previously not so. Better transactions → Dapps that were previously Apps → Tokenized Engagement, Higher Yields, Win-Win for Infra, Devs, Users, The World.
Just make transactions smarter. What does that even mean?
When a user wants something, search the best possible way to accomplish it, does not matter what type of dapp, defi or not. This is the real work of SOLVERS: Solve actual real world problems users are coming onchain for.
We need an infra for a transaction operating system: dapp devs should be able to provide the why’s and how’s of their target users wanting to use their app in clear/precise language that solvers can interpret to deliver the exact solution.
There needs to be a new handshake (a protocol to describe each dapp’s how’s and why’s) between dapp devs and solvers, such that the entirety of Internet users can be onchain: Upgrading the general transactions infra irrespective of which L1 or L2, for that mistakenly puts the focus on under-the-hood mechanics. Even with the best intentions, we get carried away with tinkering under the hood at the cost of those wanting to drive the car, the users. The best engines with broken steering wheels. The best bricks with no houses being built.
If you want, call this new protocol: Intent Language with a Taxonomy for Dapps. Or just Transaction Operating System. Or simply, Smart Transactions.
There will to be next billion Internet scale Dapps developed leveraging these Smart Transactions.
Just fix transactions, not Blockchains, not the Internet.
There are no blockchains, just transactions. Sometimes some of these transactions follow certain mechanics to collate together as this or that blockchain. But for the user, there are no blockchains, trying to impress the users with ‘my dapp runs on the best blockchains’ is wrong even with the best intentions.
Improving upon transaction experience is real only inasmuch we improve the kind of dapps available for users. Transactions that just work for users, and dapps that serve actual purpose to users, and solvers who solve real problems that these dapps throw at the underlying backend — these three are three sides of the same pyramid.
Any and every interaction online is through transactions: login to your email, messaging, online shopping, calling a cab… Transactions underpin all of our experience. Unfortunately, the transactions that are served up onchain lack the quality that we find on the Internet otherwise. Harsh truths. Transactions in Web3 must match that of Web2. There is no Internet, just transactions.
Users with zero knowledge of which L1 or L2 or any of the latest upgrades in the backend: Billion of users using the myriad kinds of dapps for every conceivable need. Internet that works for everyone and not just the few who are onchain as late as 2025. Isn’t that the endgame of all decentralization?
