Imagine someone’s first day in crypto. They heard promises to own their own money, access global markets and participate in the new economy. They download a wallet, buy ETH and find an interesting application. Then it happens.
“Please upgrade to basic network.”
What? They frantically Google it, watch a YouTube tutorial, and maybe they understand it, maybe they don’t. Most simply leave, with one study finding that 80% of crypto users leave blockchains within 90 days.
The biggest innovation of the last decade – the proliferation of powerful blockchains – has inadvertently created Web3’s greatest weakness: a user experience so fragmented and clunky that it repels all but the most determined users.
And the most glaring symptom of this failure? The humble “Network Switch,” a feature that has become a symbol of everything that holds us back.
The MetaMask years taught me everything
When I was at ConsenSys ten years ago, the mission was simple. Bring the world to Ethereum via MetaMask. At the time, only one channel was available to MetaMask users. Users could simply focus on the applications, the possibilities, the revolution we were building. MetaMask has been spectacularly successful as a gateway with millions of users and billions in volume.
But observing its evolution has revealed the fundamental problem with our industry. The “Networks” dropdown that appeared when launching other channels wasn’t a feature – it was an admission of failure. We prioritized technical expansion over user understanding.
The brutal truth is that if users have to think about channels, we have already lost.
Why everyone hates using crypto
Want to use Ethereum assets on a Solana app today? Fasten your seat belt. First, find a bridge (good luck choosing the secure, compatible, inexpensive option). Connect your wallet. Approve tokens. Pay for gas. Wait for confirmations. Change the network in your wallet. Log in again. I hope nothing went wrong. Check three different block explorers to track your assets.
This is madness. We live in the digital equivalent of the pre-Internet dark ages, where you had to figure out whether a service was on AOL or CompuServe and manually connect to different networks. The Internet didn’t win because it had better technology. She won when that complexity disappeared.
Each network change prompt costs our users, including gas fees and wasted time. Any confusing transaction kills adoption. Each “bad network” error message pushes acceptance further away from the general public. We don’t lose to traditional finance because it’s better. We lose because they are simpler.
Developers are drowning too
Wallets get blamed, but they only show the mess underneath. The real disaster lies at the base.
A founder recently shared with me their breaking point. “We launched Ethereum and saw real traction. Users loved it. Then we tried expanding to Solana and Sui to reach more people. Suddenly we were learning entirely new programming languages, duct tape chains with sketchy bridges, maintaining three separate codebases. Six months later, we gave up on expanding. The complexity was killing us. “
This story is repeated everywhere. Teams spend more time managing infrastructure than building products. Liquidity becomes fragmented across chains. Users don’t know which version to use. Innovation is stifled by operational overhead.
We force users to become their own travel agents in a world of incompatible airlines. Need to move from Ethereum to Solana via Arbitrum? Determine the connections yourself. Book each step separately. I hope your assets arrive. What we desperately need is Expedia for blockchains. Something that manages the entire journey invisibly while users focus on their destination.
The fix already exists
The solution requires more than better wallet interfaces or smoother bridges. We need a chain abstraction. We need the ability for applications to natively interact with any chain, making the underlying blockchain invisible to users.
This technology exists today. Several teams are building it. Account abstraction solutions like ZeroDev improve the wallet user experience, and cross-chain messaging solutions like Chainlink CCIP help move data from chain A to chain B. Blockchains like ZetaChain (of which I am a core contributor) approach it differently. From day one, they enable applications that span all major chains, including the Bitcoin network, which is not normally supported by cross-chain smart contract platforms.
Imagine a universal layer that securely connects to all chains, where a single smart contract simultaneously manages assets like stablecoins and logic everywhere. Users see a simple one-click action like swapping native BTC for ETH, depositing stablecoins to Ethereum in a yield app on Solana, or accepting payment in any token on any chain. The protocol automatically handles all complex cross-chain executions. No pop-ups. No switching. No worries about being on the “right” network.
The infrastructure works. What’s missing is admitting that our current approach has failed and committing to implementing something radically simpler.
It’s time to choose
The crypto industry is at a crossroads. We can continue to build for ourselves, adding more chains, more bridges, more complexity, and remain a niche corner of finance. Or we can finally put users first.
Do you remember why we started this movement? Create a better financial system. To give people control. Eliminate the middleman. None of this matters if ordinary people can’t use what we build.
The network switch must become a museum piece, a relic from the days when we were too focused on technology to see humans try to use it. Every major advance in computing has occurred while complexity was hidden. From command lines to GUIs, from manual IP addresses to domain names, from desktop software to cloud services.
Our moment has arrived. The technology to make blockchains invisible is here, proven and ready. The question is not whether we can improve the Web3 user experience.
The question is whether we will have the courage to admit that we broke it in the first place.
