Chris Dixon recently laid out why crypto’s biggest wins so far have come in finance, and why that is neither surprising nor a failure. Haseeb pushed back, arguing that we should stop pretending otherwise. In his view, the non-financial ideas mostly flopped because people did not want them, not because regulation or timing got in the way.
Both make solid points. The truth sits somewhere in the middle, and it is simpler than the back-and-forth suggests.
Finance has been the clear winner for a reason. Bitcoin treats money as censorship-resistant property. Stablecoins give fast, programmable dollars that anyone can move. DeFi lets people lend, borrow, and trade without asking permission. Real-world assets bring huge but boring markets like treasuries and invoices onto the chain. These solve real problems that millions of people deal with every day. Users put up with ugly interfaces, high fees, and sketchy headlines because the payoff is worth it. That is product-market fit.
The non-financial experiments mostly failed to clear that bar. Decentralized social networks struggled to gain traction. “Web3 gaming” often meant grindy mechanics wrapped in token speculation. Creator platforms and decentralized media pitches rarely felt better than Twitter, Substack, or Spotify. Many were built because the narrative sounded exciting, not because users were asking for them. When capital dried up, the market’s verdict was hard to ignore.
That said, the infrastructure argument still matters. You cannot build smooth consumer experiences without decent wallets, cheap transactions, reliable identity, and liquid stablecoins. Early scams and rug pulls poisoned the token well for years. Anything with the word “token” in it started to feel like a quick flip. Regulatory pressure forced honest builders to tiptoe around basic features. It is hard to convince normal users to try something when their first exposure involves hacks or celebrity pump-and-dumps.
Better rules would help. We already saw it with stablecoins. Once legislation gave them a clearer lane, institutions moved in quickly. Similar clarity around other token uses could let real experiments run without the constant fraud shadow. Timing and foundations still matter.
So where does that leave us?
Finance keeps growing because the opportunity is enormous. Legacy banking and payments are slow, expensive, and heavily gatekept. Programmable money is a direct upgrade for anyone dealing with cross-border transfers, high-interest debt, or closed financial systems. That alone could carry crypto through several more cycles.
Consumer use cases will appear, but they will look different from the 2021 vision. The winners will build on financial rails rather than try to decentralize everything. Expect:
- Games where ownership and trading feel optional and rewarding, not like mandatory ponzi mechanics.
- Creator tools where tokens or NFTs increase earnings without making the experience more complicated.
- Social apps that use portable identity or on-chain reputation, but only where it clearly improves the user experience.
- AI-driven services where agents transact, coordinate, and settle value directly on-chain.
Pure decentralization for its own sake will keep losing to centralized products on convenience and speed. Hybrid models that mix crypto’s strengths with traditional infrastructure are far more likely to win.
Finance leads because it already works. Everything else follows when it proves it deserves to.
