Cryptocurrency is cool. Really. For the first time ordinary people can create media of value and exchange on their own. Bitcoin proved it can be done, Ethereum extended that to include money with … abilities, cash with superpowers. I think, ever so humbly, that the really interesting stuff is yet to be invented. We’re still almost entirely still in the land of geek toys.

It’s very hard to estimate the number of active crypto people. There can be many individuals connected to a single wallet and each of them can have many wallets. So wallet counts are only very rough guides but still the best we got. When I look for numbers I end up with ones in the low 10’s of millions. That sounds like a lot but it’s a tiny figure when compared to 1.5 billion smartphones sold in 2017 or PayPal’s 20 million transactions per day.

Comparing Adoption Rates

Innovation Adoption Curve: Cryptocurrency is roughly between the “I” and the “N” in “Innovators”

Bitcoin is nearly a decade old now, Ethereum a bit over three years. But check this shit out; in 2010, its third year on the market, the iPhone sold 40 million units in that year alone. Cumulatively it was at nearly 75 million units sold. A decade after its launch over a billion units have been sold in total. Yet the number of crypto users is still somewhere in the 10–50 million range. Those actually transacting as opposed to investing are probably an order of magnitude (or more) less. The population of a single mid size city.

Any total market is tough to call. Even estimating the number of transactions in the world today is hard but I’ll take a stab at it. And please, the numbers below are estimates — let me know if you disagree in a significant way but let’s not sweat the small shit.

Let’s estimate the total number of financial transactions at 2 billion per day (1.5 bil non-cash + 30% Cash).

Estimated Maximum crypto transactions: 1 mil /day. (Bitcoin’s 250k * 2(all other crypto) *2 (just to avoid arguments).

1 mil is 0.0005% of 2 bil. I’ll concede this is nothing more than outer bounds of the potential — probably nothing realistically achievable but it does give an idea of where we are. To me it looks like somewhere before the “I” of “Innovators” in the graph above. For mass adoption to build we need to get to about 10–15% or roughly an increase of 100X. What’s stopping things now?

Geeks vs Normals

The short answer that doesn’t actually explain much is that crypto is still a geek toy. People who dig it tend very strongly to be attracted to the technology; to the anarchy and privacy; to the Big “Fuck You” they feel they are giving to governments, the banks… The Man; and of course, those looking for instant wealth via speculation. Geeks of one type or another, one and all. Geeks by definition have different emotional triggers than the general population of Mass Adoption fame. Nothing wrong with geeks, of course, I’m one. We simply need to recognize that the emotional elements that make Mom & Pop or Random Genderless Millennial Thing get excited are not the same ones we of Geekdom get all weak kneed over. Stuff that turns us on will not turn on the masses. Our geeky trunons may even be outright turnOFFS for regulars.

Geeks who want crypto are attracted to it. They WANT to be involved for whatever their reason. They make up the less that 0.1% on the Adoption Curve we see today. That’s all cool. Now we need to discover or perhaps create the reasons for non-geek groups, any bits of the the remaining 99.9% to want as well.

Hygienic UX

Crypto usage is a pain in the ass. We need to learn new stuff, we gotta check out some wallets and choose one — maybe more than one if we get deeply into it enough for several currencies. We got to accept new responsibilities — especially those surrounding the private keys. We have to do all this with no obvious benefit, no reason, no motivation to even start.

This is simply a no-brain non-starter. No one, not even a geek, will take these steps without any reason to do so. The crypto world today presents high barriers to adoption and only rather philosophical and obscure motivations.

Step one is to lower at least some of those barriers, hygienic UX. Hopefully we can get to the same level of usability as common alternatives; cash and card transaction.

Anyone who, after reading this, is getting all huffy, saying “crypto can’t do that” is reading the wrong article. Sorry to have wasted your time, you are free to put it down and do more useful stuff. I am interested in Mass Adoption and I see all these barriers to adoption as our problem, one to resolved with better design.

Kill Transaction Fees

Regular people pay with their cards for this and that. Behind those payments lurk transaction times, fees, and all kinds of technical and financial goblygook. Regular people couldn’t give even the tiniest of shits about it. Not a nanosecond on the most fleeting of thoughts. None. Now WE of CRYPTO want them to understand how to calculate Bitcoin fees based on the Current Bitcoin Memory Pool & how many blocks from now I want it, 2100 Gas, GWEI, how much that thingie from Plastic-Crap-Online.com will actually cost… Right. All that for my bit of plastic crap or a fucking cup of coffee. This is the #1 problem. There is absolutely no reason to inflict such bullshit on The Common Man.

The End User Doesn’t Need to Know Gas Ever Existed

Aerum.com is an infrastructure project that solves transaction fees by hiding them from the end user. This is one enormous step in the right direction. One so bloody obvious I’m surprised it took a decade to do. Aerum’s infrastructure allows business designers to create actual mass market focused business offerings and that is deeply cool. It’s why I joined the team there.

A Reason to Want

Hygienic UX doesn’t actually solve the real issue though— a reason to want to use crypto. After all, “Crypto: NOW as easy as what you’ve been doing all along” isn’t a strong sales message. To get new groups of people on board we need to give them strong reasons to want to. But eliminating needless barriers is the place to start for now.

[Full Disclosure: Nik is an experience strategist & design consultant who, because of his fascination with crypto and the potential UX challenges it offers, has joined the team at Aerum.com]