Explore the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain in the Abstraction Era, where customers smoothly make purchases using fiat currency, unaware of the blockchain infrastructure that enables their transactions.
In the future, many cryptocurrency users may be unaware of its use for purchases. Despite predictions of crypto and Web3’s downfall, I acknowledge the possibility. However, a burst bubble does not signify the end, but rather the start of a new chapter. The next billion cryptocurrency users won’t own bitcoin, ether, or any other fungible tokens in the blockchain’s future. For the purpose of making purchases of goods and services, they will need fiat, which may later be converted into tokens. The Crypto Era and the Web3 Era are the first two epochs that blockchain has experienced, and the third, the Abstraction Era, is about to begin.
The blockchain will essentially become infrastructure. We won’t discuss “the blockchain” either, much like how no one actually talks about “the cloud” anymore. We won’t need to know or give a damn about whose blockchain stores our purchases.
Not Bitcoin, but blockchain
I don’t start saving up a lot of euros in advance of a vacation to Italy. All I worry about when I get there and sit down at a restaurant is eating my spaghetti and drinking my wine. My credit card payment will be changed from dollars to euros. Fantastic if the back-end technology changes my currency to USDC and then to EUROC while avoiding the merchant foreign exchange fees by using the Solana blockchain to carry out the transaction.
I don’t need to understand how the technology works because the restaurant is still receiving payment in euros and I am still using dollars to make my payment. I don’t need to focus on the blockchain technology that makes this transaction seamless. The most fascinating aspect of this new era will not be the money itself, but the underlying technology: the blockchain.
And it’s already taking place: You can now purchase an NFT on OpenSea with money. In actuality, that is turning into their main call to action.
Despite the fact that no one ordering a pumpkin spice latte will ever require MATIC or care, Starbucks also said on Polygon that they will start giving customers “stamps” in their Odyssey loyalty program.
According to Nansen, 4.3 million individuals have downloaded Reddit’s “Collectible Avatars” (noticeably not named NFTs) since September 2022, which is higher than the total number of wallets with any NFTs at all (2.5 million) before September. You can buy these avatars with your country’s fiat money.
All of these are examples of how to eliminate those cumbersome processes from the waning Web3 era so that the end user may complete their purchase with a single click as opposed to struggling through the entire laborious procedure themselves. That is the abstract period at work.
Predicting future events
Users could only benefit from the mobile evolution if they had access to a mobile device, some level of technical skill, and the willingness to alter their behavior. Then, ardent crypto enthusiasts would assert that the crypto movement has only advanced as far as the initial mobile revolution.
When you break down the procedure we go through to utilize cryptocurrency, you’ll find that it involves signing up for an exchange, connecting your bank account, purchasing tokens, installing browser wallets, and connecting your wallet. The entire process of sending the token back to the exchange, selling it, paying the fees, and then taking the money must be reversed if you ever need to convert the token into cash. This could take days (assuming the exchange allowed withdrawals at all!)
Was this — the cumbersome, erroneous procedure — what we were all so enthusiastic about?
However, the internet and technology have naturally evolved into the cloud, which everyone utilizes, often without realizing it. The end user doesn’t care how the cloud works, and using it doesn’t need new hardware, software, or behavior. The cloud improves your experience quietly.
No supplier promotes cloud benefits to new clients. The end user doesn’t care about data storage or technology. They want a great UX and data security. Blockchain technology has evolved similarly.
In the abstraction era, we’ll invest in blockchain-based startups and technologies. Many funds used to call themselves “cloud” funds or invest in “mobile,” but those distinctions are nonsensical.
Similar to this, in about five years, it won’t matter whether a fund is a “Web3” fund. Where cryptocurrency or Web3 technology or ideologies make sense, the greatest companies will just use them, and everyone will win.
The future is all about abstraction, and this new age will usher in the next billion users—who will actually be the first billion, given that neither our “crypto” era nor our “Web3” era were able to attract more than 100 million individuals.
