Original article by Nick Tomaino, 1confirmation
Original translation: Zen, PANews
Consumer applications like Coinbase, Uniswap, Opensea, Polymarket, and others have brought millions of people into crypto and have truly moved the industry forward by providing novel, mass-accessible experiences.
Yet, why haven’t we seen more of these applications in the past 15 years?
The answer is short-term greed.
For many people entering the crypto space, they are often attracted and severely distracted by the over-focus on getting rich quick. This mentality applies to everyone from the average college student speculating in “altcoins” to the billion dollar VC fund investing hundreds of millions in the 19th crypto exchange or the 27th scalability L1.
Greed is part of human nature, but excessive greed and short-term thinking limit progress. To achieve great success in the long run, you have to believe in something more important than making money, be willing to invest many years, and ultimately enable entirely new behavior patterns that the world has never seen before.
I have been investing in crypto for over a decade myself, and I am certainly driven to some extent by greed, so I don’t claim to be more noble than others. But our strategy at 1coinfirmation is to achieve long-term greed by focusing on innovative products that can attract new users, rather than investing in projects that only care about their own interests and extracting value from users. Our main goal is to make cryptocurrencies reach more than 1 billion users, which is the North Star that guides all our decisions.
More creativity, less greed
In order for this industry to realize its potential and reach 1 billion+ users as quickly as possible, we need more creativity and less greed. A scalable L1 could potentially push its FDV to over $1 billion with a good narrative, but the current lack of block space is not holding our industry back, it’s the lack of creativity that is the real hindrance. We need more creative thinking around the world’s unique needs, rather than always thinking about how to catch up with the next hot narrative.
Here are some new application ideas that sit at the intersection of cryptocurrency with news, social media, sports, politics, health, and music. Many of these ideas are already being worked on to some degree, but I think it would be more beneficial if more time and effort were invested in them:
news
On the surface, prediction markets appear to be just another form of gambling. But on-chain markets allow anyone to “bet” on global events, providing useful information that helps people better understand the world. Market prices and unbiased analysis of political, war, and cultural events can be used by news brands to gain more trust from truth-seekers around the world.
Idea: A news app that uses prediction markets + artificial intelligence (AI) to give people an easy-to-use, unbiased source of truth. The right product could replace social media like X (formerly Twitter) and mainstream media like the New York Times (NYT) and CNN.
Reference applications: Polymarket, DeepNewz
Social Media
We have now come to understand the power of a few centralized social media companies like Meta, X, etc. They have the ability to control public perception without being aligned with the interests of their users. It is only a matter of time before great products that align with user interests emerge and give users more control and money-making opportunities.
Idea: An on-chain social media app that gives users control over their data and offers new ways to make money.
Reference applications: Warpcast, Degen, Wildcard
politics
Blockchains are enabling new forms of social organization. Bitcoin was the first decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), and since then we have seen many experiments in on-chain ownership, voting, and capital formation. Each crypto community can be thought of as a digital nation, where people are connected not by physical location but by shared beliefs and economic incentives. This is very powerful.
Idea: An application that allows people to easily form on-chain DAOs for collaboration, voting, investment decisions, etc.
Reference applications: Bitcoin, Nouns.wtf
physical education
The business model of sports and the way people participate in and consume sports are changing at an unprecedented rate. To date, there have not been any blockbuster sports apps, but we can expect more experiments and applications that allow athletes and fans to extract value from the sports they participate in and watch.
The idea: An app that gives young athletes full control over their image and likeness, monetized directly by fans.
Reference applications: Popset, Rodeo, Krause House
music
The music industry has been controlled by large record companies, brokerage companies and platforms for more than 100 years. This centralized control has led to corruption or unfairness in the industry. Encryption technology can empower artists in a whole new way and create a whole new business model, completely replacing traditional institutions.
Creative: An application that provides independent artists with on-chain tools, allowing them to easily manage their careers without the need for a record label.
Reference apps: Sound.xyz, Coop Records, Catalog
healthy
Young people are more concerned about their health than ever before, so there is a great need for products that can motivate and encourage people to take care of their bodies.
Idea: A earn as you go app thats difficult to manipulate and engages the community in a whole new way.
Reference applications: Receipts, Stepn
All of the reference apps mentioned are worth a look. The future is hard to imagine and will inevitably bring us surprises, but there is a lot to learn from the past. While the ideas described here may not necessarily become the next billion-user hit app, I suspect they will be very close.
