The crypto industry has been witnessing great success in recent months. In light of this growth, the sector has set itself the goal of expanding its audience to become mainstream. During the Blockchain Life Forum 2024, crypto experts discussed the current market trends and the impact that UX and regulations will have on the sector’s future.
“The most pressing challenge and the biggest opportunity for the crypto industry at the moment, is optimising our UX and UI,” said Rachel Conlan, CMO of Binance.
Before entering the crypto industry, Conlan spent 15 years working in agency marketing, helping brands increase their online footprint. This experience, she recalled, showed her that, although marketing efforts do make an impact, “ultimately, it’s the design and the user interface that sets you apart in terms of building a successful and sustainable business”.
“As an industry, we need to be obsessed by it [UX]”
Rachel Conlan
Increasing crypto accessibility
One of the biggest challenges the crypto sector is facing, according to the speakers, is the need to attract new users, those who have not yet entered the crypto sphere. In order to capture this audience the products and applications need to be accessible and understandable.
“I think when it comes down to user experiences, people are often thinking about how hard it is for your grandma to use,” said Eowyn Chen, CEO of Trust Wallet. During her intervention, she compared the experience of setting up a traditional account with that of entering the web3 space, which requires users to learn a completely new vocabulary.
“People nowadays when we put everything on our phone, we forget or we lose the ability to physically keep a copy of something safe,” she explained. “So we have been thinking about this problem quite a lot is, How do we create a solution that feeds for the next 1 billion daughter newbie users?” As part of this effort, Chen discussed Swift Wallet, a new product that relies on a mature security technology called passkey.
Educating users
Education is a key part of the generation of a new customer base. In this endeavour, one of the most successful initiatives has been the Binance Academy, a blockchain and cryptocurrency education platform featuring over 1,000 articles in over 30 languages covering blockchain, cryptocurrency, Web3 and more.
However, formal education is far from the only way people get educated about crypto.
“The most successful education is usually people to people,” Chen explained. “We’re spending barely $1,000 last year on marketing. But we actually grew 30% last year, from 60 million to 80 million downloads. I realised that all that’s happening just because users organically are teaching each other how to enter the space.”
“Users are teaching each other how to enter the [crypto] space”
Eowyn Chen
“Peer-to-peer or word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful channel,” Conlan added, stressing that it is this need for a trusted source that drives Binance to invest in collaborations with influencers and develop programmes such as the Angels initiative, where 600 volunteers take it as their responsibility to educate the next cohort.
“The reason why we invest so much in macro and micro-influencers is because, in order to make the first step, or really educate yourself on this industry, you need to see people that look like you and sound like you to be comfortable to enter into it,” Conlan said.
Regulatory challenges
In the crypto circles, regulation is always at the top of mind when it comes to discussions surrounding market challenges. Yet, experts believe that the solution is not to attempt to halt regulatory efforts, but to work with the public sector to develop policies that are in the best interest of users and serve to foster growth and innovation.
“Whether you love or hate regulation, it’s here to stay,” Conlan added. “And we’re very committed to that. I would say our regulatory and government relations team spends 60% of their time working with countries and helping advocate for policy that’s in favour of users.”
She continued: “We’re very bullish on regulation. And I think we’re in a country now, in the UAE, that has taken this seriously. We are now seeing the benefits of it. It’s a crypto-positive environment where VCs and crypto and blockchain startups are flourishing. I’m excited about that. And I hope other countries follow suit. “
