2024 has been a year unlike any other, starting with U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETFs inspiring a market resurgence. This helped a number of cryptocurrencies - BTC in particular - to record repeated new all-time highs (ATHs). Moving into 2025, this transformative era could well continue, with further breakthroughs in mass adoption touted by analysts.
One area that surely looks crucial to increase global adoption is accessibility, both from a user experience perspective, and for blockchain builders, who will be keen to explore new cross-chain and multi-layer functionalities.
Many hope that one day we’ll be able to use decentralized technologies as seamlessly as we enjoy their Web2 counterparts, but they’ll need to crush a few obstacles in their path first. Complexity will need to give way to user-centric design. Theoretic ideas need to launch as practical realities. Compliance will need to be made hyper-simplistic. These are just a few ideas from one perspective. We asked industry experts to make their predictions for 2025, regarding the adoption of this revolutionary technology.
“Unified liquidity solutions and invisible blockchain integration across industries and services will make it easier for people to purchase, invest in, and stay informed about the latest blockchain projects, and participate in innovations in housing, valuable assets, and identity. Seamless and agnostic approach to blockchain is the key driver of adoption beyond 2025.” - Sander Gortjes, CEO and Co-Founder, HELLO Labs.
“The key breakthrough in 2025 will be mobile phones as node validators. By enabling mobile devices to contribute to blockchain networks, decentralization becomes accessible, energy-efficient, and user-friendly without requiring complex hardware setups.” - Venket Naga - Co-Founder and CEO, Serenity Shield
“Fully private smart contracts, with programmable privacy to meet real world use cases that require transparent accountability, is the missing ingredient for decentralized financial infrastructure to capture significant mind and market share from the current status quo. While there are privacy preserving blockchains, none offer the same degree of versatility and developer support as Ethereum. Decentralized privacy chains often fall into the "black market" category, which prevents them from scaling to everyday users. We see the adoption of programming languages like Noir, and tools like Proof of Clean Hands, as paving the way to strike the delicate balance of building privacy-first applications that can do real business in the real world.” - Shady el Damaty, Co-founder of Holonym.
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“The inflection point for user adoption in 2025 will hinge on enabling developers to create more consumer-facing dApps that deliver real value to users. It is hard to predict exactly what will unlock this or what type of consumer-facing dApps will be the catalyst. One thing is clear - access to fast and reliable data will be a key factor in facilitating this. At The Graph, the ecosystem is focused on several priorities, including data composability and verifiability, to help give developers the tools they need to bridge the gap to mainstream adoption.” - Nick Hansen, The Graph Foundation.
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“Account Abstraction. It is completely understated how Polymarket’s use of Account Abstraction has made it possible for its widespread adoption. MetaMask pop-ups for every transaction and having to worry about gas and all these things will never be acceptable UX. AA solves this. Account Abstraction solves the UX problems of DeFi and will bring rise to a new suite of DeFi dApps that will achieve mass adoption, like Polymarket.” - Griff Green, Co-Founder of General Magic.
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“I think the next big leap hinges on trustless custody solutions that provide the safety net of centralized platforms with the autonomy of self-custody. Imagine a scenario where you can hold your own keys but also tap into institutional-grade insurance and compliance. That sort of trust-minimized environment, combined with frictionless user experiences, will embolden mainstream adoption. Much like how the iPhone’s app ecosystem drove smartphone mass adoption, a security model that blends consumer convenience with crypto’s self-sovereign ethos will open the floodgates to everyday users.” - Ran Yi, Co-Founder at Orderly Network.
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“We believe that, by 2025, the key driver of global crypto adoption will be delivering a unified, intuitive user experience. Today’s fragmented landscape—requiring multiple protocols, wallets, and interfaces—intimidates anyone not ready to invest hours mastering complexity. Traditional finance succeeds by offering simple, user-friendly products, and the crypto industry must follow suit to compete effectively.” - Valeriia Varentsova, Marketing Lead at Tonkeeper.
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“Agentic systems mark the next phase of AI, shifting from reactive to proactive interactions, thanks to the ability of AI agents to reason, act using tools, plan, and access memory.”
“The convergence of AI, crypto, and Web3 will also transform user adoption. DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) and DeAI (Decentralized AI) represent over 210 startups with publicly traded tokens and a combined market cap of $50 billion. This growing synergy across AI and blockchain can accelerate mainstream adoption in 2025 by making decentralized technologies more accessible.” - Nelly Cornejo, CMO at iExec.
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"I believe 2025 will be a turning point as multiple factors converge to drive mainstream adoption. The AI narrative will continue to evolve, and we’ll see deeper integrations between AI and crypto. At the same time, high-performance blockchains will demonstrate their ability to deliver real value by powering new Web3 applications without sacrificing user experience. These breakthroughs will prove that on-chain applications can compete with traditional platforms in terms of performance, cost, and scalability." - Paul Thomas, Founder of Somnia.
“As blockchain technology continues to evolve, AI and AR will streamline business processes and enhance user experiences, especially meeting efficiency, conversational interactions, and overall productivity. Additionally, platforms that bridge the gap between technical complexity and user-friendly experiences will be vital in helping Web3 projects reach larger audiences, since demonstrating how blockchain solutions can solve real-world problems builds trust with everyday users.” - Sander Gortjes, CEO and Co-Founder, HELLO Labs.
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“Mainstream adoption requires two critical user experience advancements. Firstly, biometric technology. Implementing seamless biometric authentication, such as fingerprints for decentralized platforms, will enhance security while simplifying access. Secondly, integration with payment systems - easily connecting decentralized platforms with Visa and Mastercard to bridge the Web2 and Web3 gap and drive familiarity and trust. Together, these innovations will remove adoption barriers and create a frictionless user experience.” - Venket Naga - Co-Founder and CEO, Serenity Shield.
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“The biggest problem in crypto is still around self-custody UX. The problem has not been solved, despite what projects might tell you after raising large VC funds and needing to take short cuts to reach scale. A credible solution must have, at least; the user in full control of their key; security as strong as a hardware key but UX of a hot wallet; be universally usable across applications; and easily recoverable with programmable security policies. The shift towards these solutions is already happening away from Wallets as a Service, to the more flexible and secure Wallets as a Protocol, powered by 2PC technology.” - Shady el Damaty, Co-founder of Holonym.
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“I believe that, on the whole, the Web3 industry recognizes that poor UX and overly complicated interfaces create significant friction for mainstream adoption. It seems to me that the focus on user experience should probably start at the on-ramps and off-ramps into Web3, such as wallets. Early adopters and tech enthusiasts may tolerate these types of challenges, but a broader audience won't have the same patience. That said, I’m confident these hurdles will be overcome. There’s no way the talent and conviction building this industry will let UX block adoption. We’re already seeing the steady evolution toward a more intuitive and accessible user experience.” - Nick Hansen, The Graph Foundation.
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“A favorable US regulatory environment is very likely to increase adoption of the big FinTech players, like Visa, Venmo, etc. They have all been researching and experimenting for years. PayPal even has their own stable token. I think big FinTech players will begin to integrate some of the safer DeFi platforms into their backend, and offer some of the services available on DeFi, like lending and borrowing crypto assets, through their normal Web2 applications. We are going to see a massive uptick in DeFi liquidity from retail and institutional players.” - Griff Green, Co-Founder of General Magic.
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“Web3 designers are still working tirelessly to abstract away the complexity so that decentralized tools feel as intuitive as signing into an email account. That means uniform, chain-agnostic logins and private key management that’s invisible to the user. Biometric authentication or social recovery mechanisms can drastically simplify the onboarding experience.”
“Instead of wrestling with seed phrases or switching networks, users should see a universal interface. Once that seamlessness is a given, the conversation moves from “Why is crypto so hard?” to “How did we ever live without it?” In other words, it’s less likely to be a single eureka moment or killer app that supercharges adoption, but rather 1,000 tiny improvements that when combined, will make Web3 as easy as ordering an Uber.” - Ran Yi, Co-Founder at Orderly Network.
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“The modern Web3 wallet is evolving from a digital vault into an all-in-one gateway to the decentralized world. Beyond secure storage and easy transactions, these wallets now connect users to an entire ecosystem of assets, communities, and apps. To attract the mainstream, we need integrated “super-apps” that combine investing, gaming, NFTs, DeFi, and more in one familiar interface, lowering entry barriers and boosting accessibility.” - Valeriia Varentsova, Marketing Lead at Tonkeeper.
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“The breakthrough lies in the abstraction of technical complexities for users and the defragmentation of Web3—from ecosystems to liquidity, development, and governance.”
“AI Agents can address some of these challenges by enabling users to interact intuitively, similar to how they navigate Web2 apps today. These agentic systems can interact directly with users, acting on their behalf to reduce technical friction, and also collaborate with other agents across decentralized products and services to provide a seamless experience.” - Nelly Cornejo, CMO at iExec.
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"User experience is the biggest barrier to Web3 adoption, and the key breakthrough lies in building faster, cheaper blockchains that don’t compromise on performance. Today’s tools and conventional blockchains make it nearly impossible for developers to create smooth, responsive applications.” - Paul Thomas, Founder of Somnia.
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The collective expertise from these industry thought leaders reveals a unified vision - blockchain’s mainstream breakthrough moment will hinge on simplification, user-centric design, and actually solving real-world problems. From seamless integration to mobile validation, there appears to be a shift towards convenience coming. The same is true of privacy solutions and intuitive interfaces - complexity must transform into accessibility. That’s the key here.
