This year has seen a great crypto cycle with new all-time highs, euphoria and mainstream media coverage of crypto trends. du jour. However, the uncomfortable truth for us in the industry is that compared to 2017, cryptocurrency is no longer present in most people’s daily lives. Four years have passed – what has hindered their growth and development?

2017 was my first professional foray into the blockchain space when I joined Crypto.com (then known as Monaco) as the first Chief Marketing Officer. The company has developed into one of the largest cryptocurrency service providers and transfer portals in the world.

During this time, the crypto space has changed. Payments are much less focused and many projects aimed at introducing cryptocurrencies have been pushed aside. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and unusable tokens (NFTs) have grown in prominence, but ultimately they are still focused on trading cryptocurrencies and cannot help the real world in any way.

Related: Is the cryptocurrency approaching its “Netscape moment”?

This situation reminds me of the cellular industry before the iPhone and the Steve Jobs revolution. Technology and features are stacked with no additional impact on end users despite a lot of advertising.

As a pioneer in the field of mobile marketing, I have been with the Mobile Marketing Association in Asia for over ten years (as President 2009-10) and have seen the development of the industry firsthand. One thing that is misunderstood about the revolution is that Apple did not “invent” the smartphone in a meaningful way.

From nothing to hero with just one innovation

If you ask someone on the street what makes the iPhone so successful, you get at least half a dozen different answers. Some say it’s apps and the App Store. For everyone else, it’s the gorilla glass and the touchscreen. It’s 3G (in fact, the first iPhone didn’t even have one), Wi-Fi connectivity, camera, comfortable size, slim design …

All of these factors, of course, contributed to this. However, keep in mind that all of these features are already present in some form in other phones. Nokia already has the Symbian operating system and a fairly rich application ecosystem. The same applies to BlackBerry, which was quite advanced in terms of hardware and software at the time – for example in 2005 with BBM, Proto-WhatsApp / iMessages. Palm and many other companies make “pocket computers” with touch screens and styluses. Nokia excels with text-recognition phones and cameras, Motorola blows people away with Razr’s design, etc.

The only independent innovation that the iPhone offers is the user experience (UX), more precisely the capacitive multi-touch touchscreen. It introduced the gestures, the on-screen QWERTY keyboard, and the basic smartphone design we know today, but nothing else about the iPhone itself was new. It was just the ultimate phone – as Steve Jobs said at the time: “An iPod, a phone, and an internet-connected device … aren’t three separate devices. This is a device, ”- offers a device that is easy to use, slim and good-looking, and packed with features. The rest, as they say, is history.

Crypto has yet to appear on the iPhone.

Restructuring cryptocurrencies as a means, not an end

When we talk about the introduction of cryptocurrencies, we have to acknowledge the pragmatic considerations of the common people. The vast majority think of costs and benefits before any idealistic concern. Organic food has its place, but it’s a small market – most people buy food by taste and price. Electric cars are in trouble because they have some practical drawbacks and are often much more expensive.

Positioning cryptocurrencies as a great tool for financial freedom and decentralization would leave most people blank. By far the most important reason people are jumping into crypto is the price hike, not the utility. Cryptocurrencies are useful in certain applications, such as cheap global transfers of value. However, there are many practical drawbacks to using cryptocurrencies for payments, most of which involve integration with existing financial pipelines. In all fairness, the user experience of using cryptocurrencies to pay for anything is brutal – with complicated fees, confirmation times, and tricky units that make the adoption battle a thrill.

Related: The mass adoption of blockchain technology and education is key

There are no perfect comparisons, but I think crypto’s “capacitive multi-touch screens” regulate this as a means rather than an end. Ordinary people don’t care about cryptocurrency, they care about what they give them. If you promise them lambos and the moon, they’ll listen, but that will only get you so far.

What if you used crypto to eliminate the middleman between you and your money to send (almost) free money transfers, foreign exchange, interest rates that the average person can only hope to pay instead of receiving, and other benefits, will you make unhappy cardholders jealous? ?

You can bet the average person would care.

Here’s the strategy we’ve chosen: Redeemable memberships give you access to a range of useful financial, travel and lifestyle services that are easily accessible on both the app web and mobile devices, even chat services like WhatsApp or Telegram. We have acted in two directions: eliminating the hassle of using our product and making it incredibly useful for everyone. Just like the iPhone back then.

Of course, there is still a long way to go. But if more crypto projects go outside and focus on utility rather than just cryptocurrencies for speculative profits, that could bring us back down to the mainstream adoption path we are used to.