The Decade Ahead: What Crypto Must Become
A new decade begins with crypto at an inflection point. The technology works. The infrastructure exists. But for crypto to fulfil its potential, it must solve the problems that the first decade exposed — usability, regulation, and real-world utility beyond speculation.
The Decade Ahead: What Crypto Must Become
The first decade of crypto — from Bitcoin's genesis block in January 2009 to the end of 2019 — proved that the technology works. A decentralised monetary network can operate without interruption for ten years. Smart contracts can automate financial logic without intermediaries. Decentralised finance can provide lending, trading, and stablecoins on open infrastructure. And institutional-grade custody, trading, and settlement infrastructure can be built to serve the most demanding participants in the financial system.
The second decade must prove something different: that crypto can matter to people who do not care about crypto.
What the First Decade Proved
The first decade answered the existential questions. Can a decentralised network secure billions of dollars without a central authority? Yes — Bitcoin has done so for over a decade without a single consensus failure. Can programmable money enable financial products that do not exist in traditional finance? Yes — DeFi demonstrated composable lending, automated market making, and decentralised stablecoins. Can institutional infrastructure be built to bridge the gap between crypto and traditional finance? Yes — Fidelity, Bakkt, CME, and dozens of custodians and exchanges now serve institutional clients.
These were necessary achievements. They were not sufficient.
What the Second Decade Must Prove
The second decade must prove that crypto can serve users who are not ideologically motivated, technically sophisticated, or financially speculative. This requires solving three problems that the first decade exposed but did not resolve.
Usability must become invisible. The average person cannot manage private keys, pay gas fees, or navigate the complexity of interacting with smart contracts. The user experience of crypto must become as simple as the user experience of sending a text message — which means abstracting away the blockchain entirely. The best crypto products of the 2020s will be ones where users do not know they are using crypto.
Regulation must become infrastructure. The adversarial relationship between crypto and regulators was understandable in the first decade, when both sides were figuring out the rules. In the second decade, regulation must become infrastructure — clear, predictable frameworks that enable builders to create compliant products without spending more on lawyers than on engineers. The jurisdictions that get this right will attract the best talent and the most capital.
Utility must extend beyond finance. DeFi is crypto's first killer category, but it serves a narrow audience of crypto-native users. The second decade must demonstrate utility in domains that touch billions of people — identity, credentials, supply chain provenance, digital ownership, and the infrastructure of trust that underpins modern commerce. These use cases have been discussed for years. The 2020s must deliver them.
My View
I am more optimistic about crypto's long-term trajectory than I have ever been. The infrastructure exists. The talent is here. The institutional interest is real. But optimism about the destination does not mean complacency about the journey. The problems that remain — usability, regulation, and real-world utility — are harder than the problems that have been solved. They require not just better technology, but better design, better policy engagement, and a willingness to meet users where they are rather than where we wish they were.
The first decade proved that crypto works. The second decade must prove that it matters — to the billions of people who have never held a token and never will, but whose lives will be shaped by the infrastructure being built today.