# Simplifying The User Experience Is The Key To Mass Onboarding - Wayne Marcel | FIO Protocol (DAO)

- Channel: [ETH Belgrade Community](https://streameth.org/eth-belgrade-community)
- Date: 2024-10-07
- Duration: 26:04
- Topics: People & Blogs
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-18_ct_Fvcy8
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18_ct_Fvcy8

## Transcript

hello all right so it's been the theme today in this room and I'm going to kind of echo some of what's been said and give you some new talking points um and even share my kind of experience into this space but I feel this is the number one key to on you know to to onboarding mass adoption is simplifying the user experience uh think about adoption of the internet that did not really happen till we started Ming some of these great protocols with the good simple user interface so a little bit about my web three Journey so I heard about this space for a while and in 2016 I finally decided to take a look at it I think it was actually a friend of mine it gave me a the comment was stop ignoring Bitcoin and then I went down this Rabbit Hole of everything including crypto web 3 and I saw the amazing potential I saw what this could do to revolutionized all the different areas where centralization of power centralization of data and really everything in general money was just the first aspect of what this technology could fix and we're seeing that today in new tools and products that are being developed but I remember when I went to send my first transaction I was like holy crap this is a This is complicated I called a friend of mine like how do I send this and he put the fear of God in Me it's like copy and paste that wallet address check every letter and number make sure it's right and two thoughts one that's complicated too we're not going to get we're not going to on board the masses till we start hiding some of those things so that was where it went I decided that two things were going to drive Mass adoption education being one and two being simple user interfaces that make it easy for anybody to use uh one of the great examples I heard when I was digging into the space in 2016 was Andreas Antonopoulos talk about how email evolved and in the '90s it was complicated to send email but then whenever now his mom grandmother can send an email with the swipe of a finger on the iPhone or iPad the technology in the background hasn't changed that much as interface that's evolved so when you look at mainstream adoption for any technology the user experience has to evolve when cars came out right they were driving on dirt roads that were designed for horses that had to improve and then the technology improved more people started to utilize that technology initial email email was complicated now it's simple on a tablet or a phone just a web in general to use remember in the early days if you were around for that in the internet you had to type out an IP address to get to a website and you had to remember the IP address addresses are of your favorite websites or you have to write them down keep it in a piece of paper in your pocket so you can navigate to those today we type in a website address is that IP address gone no it's still there where is it it's in the background and it doesn't really matter to you as long as you get to the right place so that's what evolves and then you look at the evolution of the the cell phone in general it got easier to use more people use it so the biggest barrier as I said is lack of userfriendly interfaces so just like the IP address hindered internet adoption long complex wallet addresses won't Foster Mass onboarding to crypto and web 3 and it's not just about those wallet addresses as you see logins if you seen anybody that's gotten on to say like Noster or platforms like that that that long Complex public wallet address is also your username um so we need to hide that we need to show simple user interfaces other barriers to mass adoption reason I'm bringing this up because I'm going to show you kind of what we do to solve a portion of that and also kind of the challenges is of where if you're building in this space if you're developing or if you're working for a project or protocol these are the things we need to focus on to get there so it's not just about the user interfaces insufficient education learning curve as I mentioned earlier C phas management I really think that in the future um new users are not going to have to write down and remember those seed phrases everywhere there may be certain wallets like your your your mass amount that you keep maybe in a cold storage wallet but other wallets you don't need to see that seed phrase um security concerns and risk which are being um you know which are being addressed with new protocols High transactions cost I think we're starting to see that evolve uh with the use of other chains other protocols U interoperability challenges across platforms and the scalability is another thing so I kind of gave an example from that image and many of you experienced this right it's a $19 ethereum transaction with a $20 gas fee so we've got to evolve to to improve that user experience and what F does is we aim to solve this with simplified transactions so being able to send and receive crypto to any wallet address so f is designed to work with any chain any coin any token it's not limited to just evm only we realize the future is multichain so whether you're sending on bitcoin ethereum salana Cosmos or anything else even if a new chain spins out tomorrow uh it's designed with that in mind because the way that the FI of blockchain is designed is that inter interoperability is the core and being able to map different wallet addresses and chain codes is very simple we don't have to change the whole smart contract uh it's all governed by the chain so one universal handle interoperable with every coin and token on all networks so the FI solution has many use cases and it's more than just wallet addresses right i' I've got ens I've got some Unstoppable domains not knocking those guys we actually have had talks about working together on different things but we do something different we're also not designed to build websites on top of so send and receive cryptocurrency is where we overlap we also have part of our protocol which is a decentralized payment request if you've ever sent a centralized payment request like on PayPal or venmo or cash app most people are familiar with that user experience and so what we do is we take that to where you can send a decentralized payment request that to the user very much looks like that VMO or PayPal experience you select which cryptocurrency you want to request you select how much you want to request and you can even put a memo as to what it's for invoice one two three or paying you back pay me back for drinks last night whatever it may be and then when that end user gets the request in their wallet all they have to do is either depending on how that wallet integrates the protocol either push a button or swipe to approve it and that is basically signing the transaction pushing the crypto to them it's also privacy based because only you and that user can see that request because you're sharing a private key with that one user to where they can see the request on chain and they decide to approve it the only thing that shows up on chain is that transaction you send bit coin it's going to show up on the Bitcoin chain just like normal nfts nfts are something that we saw a hype cycle we saw a dip and I really think the future of nfts is going to be more about utility we stop talking about floor price and we start talking about what you get with that nft whether it's access to a real world asset a membership onchain loyalty program there's so many different things that are going to evolve with nfts but in the future being able to verify that you're getting an authentic nft and not one that is a fake a forgery especially that ties to say like the title of a car the title to a house so F protocol those handles that we have can be utilized to sign those nfts so no matter what chain the nft is on you can attach a digital signature to where in the future someone's going to buy that on a secondary Market not directly from you that can verify that the Creator was that signed that transaction is the one that you're buying from so it allows you to prove authenticity of nfts without understanding how to go to how to find the right contract address how to go to block explore and how to verify that that's the right contract address and also utilizing the handle as usernames and wallet addresses and DS and other web three platforms gaming is a big one for us we just launched a um a product called Fel wallet it's not a wallet you're going to go to download it's a wallet that game developers and other D developers will use to hide all the web three elements to make that onboarding experience frictionless so what happens is Imagine in a game that person goes to play a web game they may not even realize it's a web through game it's just a new game that's fun they want to play they go to create what very much looks like a web 2 login they create an account in the background they're getting a wallet that's power by a company we partner with called medic and then they're getting a handle so all their wallet addresses are masked from the beginning so when I'm playing in the game and I go to send you an in-game asset I never see that long public address I just see your handle and I send it to you if I type it wrong it won't let me send it if I type it right it'll let me send it and it stops all those user errors from losing you know from losing funds losing assets so simpli so our fi Partners we're structured as a nonprofit so we share the majority of onchain Revenue with the partners that use our protocols if you're building something and this looks like a solution anywhere we need to resolve wallet addresses to certain piece of data we can do that it's been used for the handle resol handle resolutions within wallets like I mentioned but we've also developing new use cases we've got a couple of dexes right now that are looking at using our protocol to map contract addresses to to make sure users don't mess up when they type in they type in a um a token name on a DEX and the real one shows up but also 20 fake ones being able to easily find that contract address and map to it uh if you have a centralized platform it reduces user support needs every exchange it's integrated our protocol says it reduces their support needs from people that mess up sending the wrong address sending on the wrong chain so you can see our stats here what we've done so far and and we've uh we launched main that March of 2020 so it's been about four years so here's my challenge for the industry if you're building in this space continue to innovate but also build tools to make the user experience simple and onboarding process frictionless so the user doesn't need to know that it's onchain know that this is web three we can hide that from those of us that understand the space we understand what the benefits are and and quite frankly sometimes I think it'd be in hindrance if I tell you these in-game assets or nfts if you don't truly grasp what nft is and you only think about what you heard in the media you're going have a negative perception but what are the benefits of that true ownership trade tradability I can use it across games I bought this nft to use in this one game this other game enables me to use it and in that game it's a different weapon or Shield or skin or whatever show the benefits of why it's important without using all those B buzzwords we don't say everything is this is an internet thing this is that's an internet thing no everything is online so it's going to be the same thing with web 3 uh partner with protocols that can seamlessly integrate into your products while keeping the ethos of decentralization in web 3 that's what we've done we've partnered with a lot of different projects that maybe they don't even use our protocol but we realize we're all working towards that same direction of onboarding a user experience and so we've all got to do our part to educate users so if you are bringing people in and they have wallets they have to utilize it we've got to educate users about the basics not count on them to go out in Google and find the right answer because what's going to happen when they go to Google they're going to find something that is very much a very much they'll find good information but they also will find a lot of scams right so somebody goes find what's a wallet address they go and they find a a video about Elon Musk on YouTube and next thing you know they've got to uh they've got they fall into a scam instead of I think every every website every platform that people go to to utilize uh anything in cryptocurrency or web 3 there should be some basic education there for the user so we all have to do our part with that um the other thing is less competition more collaboration as I mentioned to you on the wallet naming front yeah we do have a couple of you who call them competitors but this space has so much opportunity to grow and we've only basically penetrated a small part of any Market in the world that it's not about competing I don't care from the wallet naming standpoint if you use our protocol ens Unstoppable or anything else that's out there the biggest thing is we've all got to work together to drive user experience and if it sounds like something you may be interested partnering with us let us know as I mentioned before um we're structured as is a nonprofit so our goal is not to drive shareholder value we're not trying to sell handles and domains for tens of thousands of dollars what we're looking to do is drive user adoption and we do that with sharing the majority of that on chain Revenue by those that support our ecosystem um our block producers and those that are running nodes those that are staking the token and our partners that integrate and use our protocol in fact our partners that use our protocol they earn much more than we do we only recoup a small percentage just to drive to drive user adoption so in conclusion of that so this is kind of my my quote uh that I I put together and basically the user experience is the bridge between blockchain technology and its adoption by the masses simplifying this experience is key unlocking is full potential um and that that's really the key as I mentioned we've got to make this easier we everybody in this room is is we've gone through the friction points we've gone through those hurdles and barriers of being able to um understand this technology you know we wrote down the seed phrases we we made sure we we put them in multiple copies we teach people not to not to just copy and paste it on your phone or save it to a notepad um wallet addresses what do we tell everybody either check all the letters and numbers we tell them check the last four and the first four or uh we tell them to do a test in and test all of those options are not going to get us to mass adoption we've got to get to where we hide all those elements that make it hard for people and make it easier so it it's up to it's up to everyone here to do that and the other challenge which I didn't put up there and I'm going to have you know kind of an offer for anybody here is on board new people to this space help them set up their first wallet send them a little bit of crypto get them used to that experience if it's a web if you're in the web 3 gaming or building a web 3 dap or anything help those users get start help new people find new people that will do it because right now if we don't do that we're we're in an echo chamber last week I was a consensus here at East Belgrade and and I think in a month we'll be in Belgium but that's great for the industry great for us to network and connect and find out what everybody's building but we've got to we've also got to work together to on board the masses so when you go out to dinner tonight are you going to offer the tip the waiter with crypto you know Bitcoin or something else get them used to setting up a wallet um that was one thing I did we were at a party of consensus last week and the whole bartending crew was a polka dot party there was like six bartenders uh set them all up with wallet showed them how to utilize our protocol and sent them all a little bit of cryptocurrency so with that um are there any questions anybody all right question for you has anybody this week gotten anybody to set up a wallet with uh that was that that wasn't involved in web 3 or crypto got them to set up a wallet anybody come on let's see making it hard let's go back there all right all right what what was the scenario sorry can we get the mic there can you say again so yeah what was the scenario what was the situation when you on board with somebody long and painful long and painful all right so does anybody here want some crypto anybody want some let's say Dogecoin anybody here want some Dogecoin y here again nobody wants free money all right so if you see me after this talk I've got some cards and as I mentioned before we get integrated into wallets and exchanges the only wallet per se that we have is the one that developers use and hide it in the back end so when you go to use our protocol say in trust wallet it'll be your username at trust um if you go to metam Mas you have to download the metam mass snap to use our protocol there but it's your username at metamask um Edge wallet is one has anybody ever heard of edge wallet so Edge wallet has I think it's about 7 million users right now they've been around for a long time um 2015 I think but they used to be called airbits and they Chang their name to Edge uh probably I don't know five or six years ago and that is what I use to onboard new users so what I have is these uh crypto gift cards to where if you download the edge wallet there is a QR code on here which is actually a private key that you can sweep that has roughly $5 a say of some Dogecoin so if you go through that setup process you mentioned it was it was painful right that friction especially when you're not at someone's house and they have to write down a seed phrase you tell them don't save it to your phone don't copy it anywhere but whether there a choice if you're out somewhere right you have you have to do that so you'll see this onboarding experience is different um it's still an noncustodial wallet you control the private keys but you set it up a different way and it allows you to secure it without having to write down that c phrase and then when you when you set up this wallet one of the first thing it has you had you do is set up your F handle that we mentioned so it'll be your username at Edge and it's free because one of the other things we did is instead of giving grants to projects to use our protocol we incentivize with free handles those handles typically cost $2 on chain it's a onetime fee but we pay for every new user to get one free handle so you can go in here you can set up a wallet set up a handle and then there's a scan QR code in the edge menu you scan this QR code and it'll ask you to if you want to sweep the private key you'll import it and you'll have $5 of Dogecoin in there the next thing you could do is if you do that and come find me I'll match that with $5 of fot tokens so you know there's there's some upside there it's $10 right now but it could be a lot more so if you're interested comes see me afterwards since I one more question does this work since I have the mic so um by I'm founder of namespace so we are one of the uh enss official ens service providers so we're not with enss Labs team but we are sort of the extension of vs uh and we definitely work a lot a lot with you know figuring out how to onboard people by issuing them either offchain subnames or L2 subnames or just like directly meting um second level name um so yeah I just wanted to say like this is really cool what you guys do and I'm definitely interested in just chatting more um as well especially in the gaming industry I think it's super cool uh people shouldn't know when they are setting up their gamer profile that they're actually setting up the wallet so I think that's um that's the right way to go so someone else has a questions absolutely absolutely thank you uh so as I'm from gaming uh could we set up to you something that all players in our ecosystem gets uh their name at our domain do something or just our domain as Gamers yeah so all the gamers inside having the buets that they can that they can exchange and and uh put money on into the game yeah absolutely we definitely set that up we set it up to where every user gets the first handle for free um and it'll be user at domain so if there's a domain available uh we can pick that up and then allow the users to register on that domain that's the beauty of it it could be your game name it could be your platform name company name whatever you want it to be thank you I think yes we have one more hi uh thank you for your talk um I just wanted to hear from your perspective as someone also working on driving Mass adoption what do you think of about uh ton telegrams and ton initiative this year and their unique positioning as a huge messenger that has like a blockchain in the background and is FIA working with t and all this things like because why why do I ask because uh many of crypto GS they kind of try to steer clear from mobile and prefer desktop and prefer entering this private key and retaining all control and here we talk about simplifying so in this uh simplifying and driving M option how much of a role is Mobile going to play I mean it's going to be huge I mean think about most people today are accessing the web or doing things online from this in our hands so I think it's going to be huge um obious just like gaming I mean traditional gaming there's uh a lot of Gamers that prefer the console game or the PC gaming but how many more millions or you know millions of people are actually playing just the Casual gaming uh so it's going to be the same concept with T it's an interesting concept because um Marie my head of marketing is up here and we've been talking quite a bit because we're seeing people that are playing these new games that are coming out uh that don't know anything about crypto or web 3 but they're playing those games because they're earning these coins so it's exposing more and more people it's great we haven't started working with them yet but some of our partners and potential Partners we've talked to are wanting to implement our handles within that that wallet uh which can be done because we have a way to use our protocol whether um telegram would would integrate it or not there's a way to utilize our protocol within there so we're looking at that but I definitely think things like that are important um back in April when I gave a talk at nft NYC I was talking about big brands that are exposing people to web 3 and they don't even realize it think about the Starbucks did a loyalty test program actually participated in that it was 30,000 people it was a small subset considered how many customers they have worldwide and we were collecting stamps that were tradable and every aspect of it was web three it was nft but they never said the word nft so those are the type of experiences where when I would talk to people about that that knew about Odyssey they didn't even realize that that was nft and that's where we've got to get that's going to kind of it'll stop some of that friction because so far all we've talked about in crypto web 3 nfts has all been about speculation and price and that also you know it when I mention nft to somebody that's not in web 3 they start to chuckle because all they think of is what we saw two years ago where it was this hype and then a dump and so we got to get past that so yeah I think what T what telegram is doing with T is great and we need to see more companies step up and utilize that and Implement some kind of strategy not saying don't just do it because it's crypto web 3 and it's the buzz word but how can your users benefit how can your company benefit how can the user experience benefit and if web 3 solves that problem implement it yes we have time for one more question yeah we we have a question over there l in the red I think she thought you were bringing it to somebody else thanks for your uh sharing your thoughts and insight um I I'm SRA from the max plank Society it's a research organizations and I like to talk to my researchers about blockchain and last time I got a very interesting questions and I did not had a good answer because I also like to make the comparison between internet and blockchain adoption and a researcher asked me yeah SRA internet is based on a tcpip protocol and this is one protocol actually I can't remember why those days we in the world said okay we use this one protocol but when you start talking about blockchain then this is Bitcoin and then you have proof of work and you have proof of stake and you have ethereum and so on so actually is the comparison between internet and blockchain still valid I think so but a lot of what you see on layer one and Layer Two Chains is just where the either the data is going to be stored the transactions are going to be hashed um there's going to be an interoperability layer that I think that'll be more Universal that'll um communicate cross chains Oracle you know you'll see that more than saying there's going to be one blockchain standard that's going to rule all because every blockchain has a different tradeoff right Bitcoin proof of work it's slow but for what it does for for digital money you know not digital money because it's not in terms of fast transactions but what Bitcoin was designed to do it does and then there's a trade-off when you go to faster blockchains um they're less decentralized so there's always that tradeoff I go I always go back to my talks I listen to Andreas anthopolos with the blockchain trima whereare you know there's there's speed there's security and there's decentralization and you typically can pick two to three that you can be strong in so there's different needs for different sectors and we think of right now as money as I'm in I'm in Serbia there's a certain money that's taken here and uh you know if I go to back to the US there's a certain currency that's taken there there only one but it's not going to be that because it's you know because it's Global you're going to have certain chains and currencies that are used for different Industries the different sectors whatever fits what they need so I think that interoperability layer on top is probably going to be what we're going to see and I've talked to a few people that are building that but just like tcpip there was people building different things at the time in the early days and there was one standard that just caught on and everybody adopted so I don't think it's going to be at the blockchain layer I think it's going to be some kind of interoperability layer above that and we have time for one quick question if we have it I think we can wrap it up they I highly appreciate you thank you