Don't let Crypto Assets complicate things.

Source: Cointelegraph Original text: “Don’t Let Cryptocurrency Complicate Things”

The viewpoint comes from: Cheng Wang, Chief Financial Officer of Overclock Labs

The mainstreaming of cryptocurrency faces a seriously overlooked obstacle: the use of logical ambiguity and self-imposed complexity. When the technology has matured enough to fulfill early visions, the obsession with industry terminology and technical mystique is hindering the influx of billions of new users.

The availability crisis of cryptocurrencies

This is a stubborn paradox: while advocating for decentralization and financial inclusion, technological barriers concentrate participation rights among a few technical elites and institutional players. Although DeFi protocols have the potential to disrupt finance, mainstream users are still deterred by obscure interfaces and technical thresholds.

Data shows that despite the increasing awareness of cryptocurrencies, active wallet addresses account for only a tiny proportion of potential users. Even more concerning is the industry’s culture of exclusion towards “tech novices”—this mentality resembles the obfuscation in the financial industry before the 2008 financial crisis, when complex financial instruments masked systemic risks that ultimately led to a rare economic downturn.

For projects like DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) and decentralized applications, this complexity artificially separates the integration of crypto innovation with traditional industries. What is the result? Revolutionary technology is still monopolized by a technological elite, which goes against our original intention of “democratizing access to financial and technological infrastructure.”

The Successful Enlightenment of the Internet

Other technologies have long since overcome this problem. Take the Internet as an example; we don’t need to enter IP addresses like “192.168.1.1” to access websites, but rather use the domain name system. This evolution doesn’t simplify the technology itself, but rather makes it seamless for the end user.

The current cryptocurrency experience still remains in the “pre-DNS era”: requiring users to manage complex wallet addresses and understand technical concepts to participate. Tech giants are well aware of this — using Venmo for transfers does not require understanding the SWIFT network, and Netflix has also revolutionized the entertainment industry through seamless experiences rather than technical preachings. The success of these platforms lies not in the complexity of technology, but in perfectly hiding it.

Bridging the mainstream gap

Centralized exchanges are far ahead in user experience, proving that cryptocurrencies can be both powerful and easy to use. However, the DeFi ecosystem still resembles an early command-line interface: the barriers of connecting wallets, understanding Gas fees, and operating smart contracts keep the masses at bay.

The solution is not a technical downgrade, but an upgrade in experience. Taking Layer 2 scaling solutions as an example, rather than requiring users to understand the principles of Rollup, it is better to present the core value of “faster and cheaper” through an intuitive interface.

Leading DeFi protocols have begun implementing improvements such as gas-free transactions and human-readable addresses, but these patchwork optimizations are far from meeting the reconstruction standard of “user experience at the core.”

The Way to Break the Impasse

The cryptocurrency industry needs a philosophical shift: technical complexity should be a backend consideration, not a frontend feature. Every project should ask itself: “Can my grandfather use it?” If the answer is no, the problem is not with the elderly but with the design failure.

We need:

Most importantly, the fallacy that “technical barriers are a filter for quality users” must be dismissed. Every user who hesitates due to complexity is a betrayal of the mission of financial democratization.

The next wave of crypto innovation will not come from adding complexity, but from making existing technology accessible to everyone. The standard for success should be “hiding complexity behind a user-friendly interface,” rather than the sophistication of the architecture.

While striving for regulatory clarity, we also need to pursue clarity in the use of logic. The future of cryptocurrency does not depend on how we interpret complexity, but on whether we can make it completely invisible—only then can the promise of an inclusive digital economy truly be fulfilled.

The viewpoint comes from: Cheng Wang, Chief Financial Officer of Overclock Labs

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This article is for informational reference only and does not constitute legal or investment advice. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the position of Cointelegraph.