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Opinion: Mass Adoption of Web3 Is Not Inevitable — Here’s How We Get There

Adoption Web3

Founder & Managing Director of Protocol Theory

Jonathan Inglis

Founder & Managing Director of Protocol Theory

Jonathan Inglis

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Jonathan Inglis is the Founder & Managing Director of Protocol Theory, the world’s leading consumer research company for Web3, AI, and emerging tech.

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Last updated:

April 23, 2025

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The idea of mass adoption is one of Web3’s most enduring narratives.

For over a decade, we’ve told ourselves that the “next billion users” are just around the corner—waiting to be onboarded by better wallets, improved UX, regulatory clarity, or simply the passage of time. Build it and they will come, right?

But the reality is more complicated.

Adoption at this scale is not inevitable. It won’t happen by accident. And it certainly won’t happen on the sheer momentum of innovation alone.

If we’re serious about reaching the next billion users, we need to start with a fundamental truth:

They will not look anything like the first 500 million.

The Innovators Are In. The Pragmatists Are Next.

The early growth of crypto was driven by a specific kind of person: the Innovator. These are the risk-tolerant, ideologically motivated, tech-curious users who were willing to tolerate friction, volatility, and uncertainty for the thrill of being early.

But mass adoption doesn’t come from the fringe. It comes from the mainstream.

According to the classic Diffusion of Innovations model, the Early Majority and Late Majority adopt only when a technology feels safe, useful, and necessary. These users are not motivated by decentralization or disruption—they’re motivated by convenience, relevance, and trust.

They don’t move because it’s exciting. They move because it makes sense.

Interest Is Growing. But Action Has Stalled.

Across multiple markets, we’re seeing a clear divergence between interest and adoption:

In the U.S., just 10% of crypto users made their first purchase in the last 12 months.
However, the share of adults actively considering crypto has jumped from 13% to 19% in the same period.
In China, behavioral demand modeling suggests over 546 million potential users would enter the market if regulatory restrictions eased.
In Southeast Asia, adoption rates are already 2–3x the global average—but millions remain on the fence, waiting for the right catalyst to act.

The demand is real. The opportunity is massive. But interest doesn’t automatically translate into action. It needs to be cultivated.

And that requires more than just better tech. It requires better insight.

Adoption Is a Behavioral Problem

The biggest myth in Web3 is that people will adopt once the product is “good enough.”
But people don’t adopt technology based on quality alone. They adopt based on perception, trust, habit, and social proof.

In other words, adoption is not a technological challenge. It’s a behavioral one.

In our work, we’ve seen small shifts—like simplifying onboarding copy, reframing benefits in user-native language, or adding low-friction trial options—unlock major conversion gains. In one case, tweaking a single KYC flow question based on behavioral cues lifted activation by 11%. In another, segmenting users based on financial psychology tripled campaign ROI and reduced churn by 27%.

These weren’t engineering breakthroughs. They were insight breakthroughs.

The lesson? If you don’t understand your next user, you won’t get them.

Stop Guessing. Start Understanding.

The industry is now competing for a user who is skeptical, distracted, and already overwhelmed with digital noise. They don’t have time to “get” Web3—they expect Web3 to get them.

That means the winners in the next wave won’t be the ones who move fastest or raise the most. They’ll be the ones who do the work to understand:

What real-world problems are people trying to solve?
What psychological frictions are stalling conversion?
What role does trust, risk aversion, or peer influence play?
What makes someone consider crypto but never take the leap?

Answering these questions isn’t optional. It’s the price of admission to the next growth curve.

The Next Billion Won’t Come to Us

If the first era of crypto was about building the infrastructure, this next era is about earning the user.

We can’t just sit back and wait for the mainstream to arrive. We have to go to them—with empathy and understanding, backed by rigor.

The opportunity is too big—and the cost of misunderstanding too high—to keep relying on instinct alone.

It’s time to stop guessing. It’s time to understand what people actually need, believe, and fear.

Because the companies that do? They won’t just win market share. They’ll define the future.

Disclaimer: The opinions in this article are the writer’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Cryptonews.com. This article is meant to provide a broad perspective on its topic and should not be taken as professional advice.