The real crypto revolution? When it becomes boring and finally works

Over the past few months, anyone following the cryptocurrency sector has observed a tangible acceleration. It’s not the usual speculative cycle where numbers inflate and then crash, but something structurally different: the rules of the game are finally becoming clear.

When Regulation Unlocks Potential

The regulation of stablecoins marks the decisive moment. With this framework gradually solidifying, the sector has taken off the handbrake and can finally move at speed. Projects are completing a crucial transition: from an exclusive ecosystem aimed only at insiders, to infrastructure designed for the general public.

The liberation is substantial. When you no longer have to constantly fear regulatory violations, you can focus on building real business models. It has been discovered that decentralized innovation, once legal obstacles are removed, completely shifts its priorities. It’s no longer about reinventing the concept of money, but about creating genuinely useful products. The same Christian Catalini, a sector researcher, emphasized how the latest technological limits are disappearing precisely as blockchain networks begin to do obvious things: integrate with existing infrastructure, connecting to a Visa card.

The Fundamental Crypto Problem: Authentication

Here we arrive at the core of the issue. Payments represent the primary function that cryptocurrencies needed to overcome for mass adoption. Bitcoin solved the “double-spending problem” through elegant engineering, preventing digital money from being copied. But it left an equally fundamental aspect unresolved: identity authentication.

Anonymity, often celebrated as a virtue of cryptography, actually represents a significant barrier to global adoption. During Libra’s design, this limit became clear. Regulators from day one demanded the creation of a secure, controlled perimeter, requiring the abandonment of fully non-custodial wallets. The reason is simple: modern society demands guarantees that the financial system does not support illegal activities like terrorism financing.

Stablecoins and Arbitrage Between Worlds

The current state is a fascinating case study: “inversion of infrastructure” in the most literal sense. In theory, the future involves advanced zero-knowledge proofs and onchain attestations that perfectly balance privacy and compliance. In practice, we are simply connecting new technology to old in the most trivial way possible.

Take the “stablecoin sandwich”—a sector term describing the process of converting fiat currency to stablecoin, transferring on the blockchain, and reconverting to fiat on the other side. It works, but the expansion method is ironic. Companies don’t connect directly to permissionless networks because it would require extra work. Instead, they hire coordination service providers who handle compliance checks and interact with the blockchain on their behalf. This brings intermediaries back to the center stage, far from the original vision of total control.

Blockchain has solved value transfer but has neglected information transfer. In traditional financial systems, every payment is accompanied by data: who initiated the transfer, its purpose, whether the payer is on sanctions lists. Without these metadata, even if the payment regulation occurs in seconds, recipient banks can still refuse due to legal obligations.

Proof of Personhood: When Cryptography Meets AI

The answer to these paradoxes emerged at the “World Unwrapped” event in San Francisco. The solution involves a chrome sphere and a fundamental concept: the ability to distinguish a human being from a robot.

With the acceleration of artificial intelligence, “Proof of Personhood” has become the most valuable resource. Alex Blania and Sam Altman illustrated the vision: in the future, two types of currency might be needed—the currency of machines and that of humans. A quote from Paul Buchheit perfectly summarizes the concept.

After six years of development, what once seemed a clumsy experiment—scanning each person’s iris—is proving its real utility. The “Proof of Personhood” is precisely the compliance function for the AI era. To scale payments, it’s used to distinguish benevolent actors from malicious ones; in a world saturated with synthetic content, it’s used to prove the one thing truly scarce: that something was created by a human being.

World: When Crypto Becomes a Real Product

For years, the dream was to build a global version of Venmo based on cryptography. Yesterday, World introduced a wallet that essentially achieves this goal. The infrastructure integrates virtual bank accounts in 18 countries, a Visa card, and local payment networks, bridging the gap between crypto and operational reality.

It turns out that users’ real need isn’t a new token but a simple solution: deposit your salary and use a Visa card. The growth model is classic: World doesn’t charge fees for most services. Banks need to charge fees to generate revenue; World does not. But the crucial element is that the movement of funds should have near-zero cost.

For banks, an international transfer requires passing through three correspondent banks and fax communications. For blockchain, it’s a ledger update. World bets that the actual cost of moving funds will converge toward zero.

Mini Apps and App Store Arbitrage

Innovation extends beyond payments. In 2024, it was already predictable that “Mini Apps” would become the sector’s killer app. At first glance, they might seem “clumsy, niche, even toys,” but their impact on market structure is profound.

The point isn’t just embedding a calculator in an X feed, but enabling developers to distribute software without app store approval and without paying commissions up to 30%. Escaping the “walled garden” is a way for developers to keep their earnings. The most valuable function for creators is managing payments without paying the “fee to the landlord.”

The combination of Mini Apps and strong identity authentication offers developers new core functionalities. World now adopts a layered approach, offering verified human identity as a premium feature. This market mechanism is more balanced than previous approaches.

Users might be reluctant to provide biometric data for an abstract reward, but if it yields higher returns or more engaging experiences, they’ll be willing to participate. The team demonstrated how Japanese users utilize World ID for verification on Tinder. The “sovereign identity killer app” could be testing a potential partner to see if you’re not a robot.

Extending to Private Communication

Blania clearly understands the platform paradox: you want the best online marketplaces, social networks, and financial services to adopt World ID, but until you have enough users, they won’t do it easily. Without a product, you don’t attract users. So, you have to build the product yourself.

This strategy explains World’s expansion into messaging. It’s integrating the XMTP protocol directly into the app. Compared to centralized alternatives like Signal, WhatsApp, or Telegram, this approach offers significant privacy advantages.

If you want to become the invisible layer of internet identity, you might first need to prove your capabilities by building a better messaging product. Shane Mac showcased his latest project—Convos—based on XMTP, demonstrating that cryptographic interoperability extends to everyday communication tools.

Convos uses encryption to offer a no-registration experience, with no phone number, history, or tracking. In a world where every Slack message and email is stored forever, truly disappearing conversations have become an extreme luxury. Early users might be investigative journalists, but the vision is to bring private conversation back as the default mode of human interaction.

When Infrastructure Becomes “Boring” and Truly Works

Overall, even though these experiments are still in their early stages, the trajectory is clear. Cryptocurrency infrastructure is finally fulfilling the promises made ten years ago. Everything enthusiasts imagined is slowly becoming “boring”—useful enough for mass adoption.

And this is happening at the crucial moment. With AI acceleration, the ability to verify truth through cryptography is no longer a philosophical passion but an essential infrastructure for the entire digital economy. When a technology becomes so integrated that it seems German and obvious, it finally means it has won.