The next is a visitor publish and opinion from Hart Lambur, Co-Founding father of RIsk Labs (UMA and Throughout).
Solana’s current development didn’t come at Ethereum’s expense. It expanded the whole crypto consumer base. As a substitute of pulling customers away from Ethereum, Solana served as a gateway for brand spanking new entrants into web3. With quick transactions and low charges, and a vibrant app layer, it grew to become the perfect onboarding ramp for the newest wave of memecoin merchants.
Prefer it or not, memecoins like HarryPotterObamaSonicInu and Fartcoin weren’t simply noise; they launched tens of millions of individuals to crypto, many for the primary time. Solana wasn’t simply the place they made their first commerce – it was their first actual interplay with the web3 ecosystem. And whereas many misplaced cash, a few of these customers caught round.
The query now could be: how can we guarantee they keep, and expertise extra of what web3 gives past hypothesis? As Vitalik put it final 12 months about memecoins, there may be an “alternative right here to attempt to create one thing extra positive-sum and long-lasting.”
From Spectators to Residents
This inflow of latest customers presents a uncommon alternative for crypto. At its peak, Solana’s memecoin increase helped drive a $47.9 billion market cap. Sure, memecoins are down 76% since their December 2024 all-time excessive, however Solana didn’t simply gasoline hypothesis; it onboarded actual customers and actual capital. Whereas the memecoin craze could also be short-lived, the members it attracted don’t must be.
Crypto has lengthy promised mass adoption, and now, we’ve the prospect to ship on that promise. However this development comes with its personal set of challenges. If we don’t make it simple for brand spanking new customers to navigate the broader ecosystem – limiting their expertise to only one blockchain or a single use case – we threat shedding the momentum, capital, and development that include it.
The Shift from Onboarding to Retention
Attracting customers is not the primary problem. Memecoins on Solana opened that door for a brand new technology, similar to ICOs, DeFi Summer season, and NFTs earlier than. The actual take a look at is guaranteeing the broader web3 ecosystem is as seamless and intuitive as essentially the most user-friendly blockchains and use instances. Solana nonetheless feels separate from the broader Ethereum ecosystem, very similar to the varied Ethereum L2s used to really feel. If we fail to make it simple for customers to discover completely different ecosystems after the joy round tendencies like memecoins fades, we’ll lose them simply as rapidly as they arrived.
Up to now, transferring from one chain to a different (whether or not to Ethereum, Base, or one other L2) felt difficult and dear. It’s very similar to arriving in an thrilling new metropolis, desperate to discover, solely to understand that the very best locations are onerous to succeed in attributable to outdated transit techniques. That is how crypto feels for a lot of customers at the moment: filled with potential, but slowed down by friction at each step. This friction isn’t inevitable and we now have the instruments to take away it.
Crosschain Infrastructure Gives the Answer
Crosschain infrastructure can present the answer. Trade-wide requirements like ERC-7683 enable web3 apps to deal with advanced multi-step crosschain transactions as a single consumer request. Authored by Throughout and Uniswap, the usual permits builders to cover the complexity of interacting with a number of chains whereas nonetheless leveraging their mixed energy. Customers profit from the very best of each worlds: the simplicity of 1 chain with the scalability of many.
The Future is Unified
Solana’s current consumer development illustrates how UX optimization can drive onboarding at scale. However onboarding is only one aspect of the equation – retention is the true take a look at. For web3 to actually develop, it must really feel like one seamless ecosystem, not a group of fragmented networks. In the identical manner ERC-7683 and intents have unified Ethereum L2s, we should give customers the identical seamless interactions with Solana.
Ethereum, Solana, and each different chain aren’t in a zero-sum battle. The long run isn’t about which chain wins. It’s about making web3 work as a unified, intuitive expertise. This implies constructing infrastructure that connects customers throughout chains quick, simplifying complexity, and making all the ecosystem really feel cohesive. Web3 will solely scale when customers cease occupied with chains completely, similar to nobody thinks about TCP/IP when searching the web. That’s the longer term we’re constructing towards.
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