In short
- ETH Denver founder John Paller says Web3 has been “epically unhealthy” at constructing usable shopper merchandise.
- Aztec Community Zac Williamson argues crypto should beat Web2 on expertise, not ideology.
- Each say adoption will stall until blockchain turns into invisible to customers.
Crypto constructed the plumbing, but it surely nonetheless hasn’t constructed the merchandise. This was a typical theme on the annual Ethereum improvement convention ETH Denver final week, as attendees tried to shift the main focus away from a regularly down market and to constructing higher Web3 merchandise.
Two distinguished voices on the occasion, ETH Denver founder John Paller and Aztec Basis founder Zachary Williamson, delivered a blunt evaluation of why blockchain has but to win over mainstream customers.
“Once you have a look at what we’ve completed in 10 years, now we have constructed a tremendous quantity of expertise and structure and scaffolding and plumbing methods that energy this revolution,” Paller advised Decrypt. “However what we’ve really been epically unhealthy at is getting common individuals to make use of common issues.”
Crypto constructed the infrastructure, however not the merchandise individuals really wish to use
“Once you have a look at what we’ve completed in 10 years, now we have constructed a tremendous quantity of expertise and structure and scaffolding and plumbing methods that energy this revolution,” ETH Denver… pic.twitter.com/57IgmxwuQN
— Decrypt (@DecryptMedia) February 20, 2026
Paller mentioned Web3 has not meaningfully changed on a regular basis digital instruments with higher decentralized options. It’s not for a scarcity of making an attempt, however even Web3 apps which have drawn substantial consideration have didn’t supplant their established, centralized rivals.
“That was the unique imaginative and prescient of Web3—we’re going to decentralize all of the issues,” he mentioned. “Properly, it seems that coordinating may be very troublesome if you make issues harder to coordinate.”
Due to this lack of coordination, Paller mentioned Web3 has failed to satisfy essentially the most fundamental expectations customers have for brand spanking new expertise.
“The rule of thumb is often cheaper, higher, sooner by way of expertise, however blockchains aren’t cheaper, they’re not likely sooner, and the person expertise will not be higher,” Paller mentioned. “So we’re mainly asking individuals to commerce off what’s absolute human certainty of cheaper, higher, or sooner by way of what they need for an ethos.”
Zac Williamson, co-founder of the Aztec Basis, a privacy-focused group that helps the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Aztec, provided an analogous critique and tied it to crypto’s broader status drawback.
“Crypto is hated—hated, capital H—by common individuals,” Williamson advised Decrypt. “Persons are not on this business due to the scammers, due to the on line casino video games, and due to the dearth of real-world adoption that improves their lives.”
Past the continued stigma of crypto’s use in crime, Williamson additionally identified that the business has but to provide apps that outperform Web2 options by way of person expertise.
“We have to really construct compelling purposes which can be higher than the Web2 options that supply a greater expertise,” Williamson mentioned. “Farcaster doesn’t actually provide a greater expertise than Fb. Web3 crypto cost rails provide a horrible person expertise in comparison with Web2. And till these points are fastened, we’re not going to see adoption.”
Williamson mentioned a serious barrier is technical, with crypto apps requiring customers to know wallets and personal keys earlier than they’ll use them. That’s a barrier for most individuals.
“You must learn about crypto to make use of a crypto app, as a result of the UX sucks,” he mentioned. “You want a pockets. It’s essential fund that pockets, which implies you want an on-ramp, and on-ramps are painful.”
He argued that mainstream adoption is not going to appear like customers consciously “shifting to Web3,” however quite crypto infrastructure working invisibly beneath acquainted purposes.
“The success case for blockchain is you don’t have blockchain,” Williamson mentioned. “You simply have apps that use the blockchain.”
Paller drew a parallel to the early web, when conferences targeted on protocol layers quite than shopper merchandise.
“We don’t speak about that stuff anymore,” he mentioned. “Now we simply speak about which apps you’re utilizing.”
He added that synthetic intelligence might velocity up that shift by eradicating a lot of the complexity customers at the moment face.
Each founders framed the present market downturn as a turning level for Web3 builders. Williamson mentioned the business should prioritize merchandise that ship clear worth, whereas decreasing the exercise that has come to outline crypto within the public eye.
“There’s the amount of bullshit, after which there’s the amount of excellent issues,” he mentioned. “Proper now, the issue is that the bullshit massively dominates the nice issues.”
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