Next Billion Users Should Never Touch Blockchain

Transcript

Oh my god, finally everybody snoozing. Wake up. My name is Pauline. Um, I am a professional hater, a very avid complainer, and also cso of a nifty little project called Change. Now before I start uh the actual important part of my keynote, I would like you to take a little look at this bag. Okay, it looks pretty good. I made it myself with my own hands and I'm proud of it. But this bag didn't start as a bag. It started as a fine horse hide, some

thread, a few metal parts, and a paper pattern. Every part was useful, and every part had value. But if you had placed all of those parts in a box or a bag and handed them to you, you would think that it's just a bunch of junk. And you would be right. To turn those parts into something that you can actually use, somebody me had to bring them together. Someone also me had to choose the right tools, cut the leather, uh join the parts, sew it up, and make sure everything worked as one.

The person who carries this bag doesn't really need to know how I did all of it. They do not need to understand every stitch of this thing. They do not need to choose the right leather, right needle or the right thread. They just pick up the bag and carry it around. Easy enough. Now, you may be wondering why I'm showing you a leather bag at a crypto conference. Because crypto has built all of the parts of a new financial system. Then it handed all the parts to you and said, "Now build it yourself." Crypto promised to remove the middleman. Remember, we

were going to remove the banks, the gatekeepers, the delays, and the limits. And in many ways, we did. Kudos to us. But we removed the middleman without removing the middleman's job. Instead of one app, we gave people an exchange, a wallet, a swap service, a bridge, a staking platform, and on an off-ramp, a trading app, a payment app. I ran into this problem myself over something completely ordinary. I just wanted to pay for a coffee here in Singapore. I had a crypto card ready to go in my Apple Pay. However, I forgot that I ran

out of balance on it. To pay for my delicious caffeinated beverage, I had to top it up. It should have been simple. However, on my non-custodial wallet, I only had USDT on Tron and my card, unfortunately, only supports USDC on Ethereum. So, first I had to open my wallet and swap some USDT to USDC. But I didn't have any gas.

The line behind me kept building. I could hear people just like whispering around. Made me nervous. And I couldn't just leave because the barista was already making my coffee. I was trapped. So, I move some money to a centralized exchange so that I can withdraw a different asset on a different network. Copy my sex address, send the transaction out. The deposit takes time. People behind me are getting frustrated. I can hear their feet tapping. I go to my app, copy my card wallet address, and go back to the sex. My hands are starting to shake. I have anxiety now. I had to p put in a password and

two separate two factor codes in order to complete my withdrawal. The withdrawal takes one minute. People behind me are starting to leave. I understand them. Finally, I got my coffee money in my card wallet. Hallelujah. I top up the card, pay for my beverage with the ice half melted already and leave with my head down. All of that work, that stress, that shame for a nice latte which didn't even taste good.

Crypto promised to remove the middleman. Instead, it gave people 12 apps, six networks, four wallets, three seat phrases, and called it financial freedom. Inside our industry, we call this choice. We call it open access. We call it a system where different tools can work together. And yes, all of that certainly matters. I'm not going to like talk about it. Don't worry. But the end user sees something completely different. They see a bunch of apps, accounts, balances, fees, companies to trust, and places where something can go wrong. Crypto has enough tools already.

The problem is that people have to connect them themselves and every extra step in that process carries an extra risk. Another address to copy, another network to check, another service to maintain, another chance to lose money. Then when something goes wrong, we tell the user, you should have done more research. But when thousands of people keep making the same mistake, it is not just user error. It is a product problem.

We ask people to be their own bank. But it's not freedom. That's up and that's total Freedom does not mean that every simple action should come with 10 tech choices. It does not mean that people should have to build their own financial system from 15 different apps. And it does not mean that you should carry all the risk while the product carries none of the blame. For years, our industry has focused on building better parts, faster and cheaper chains, more wallets, more bridges, more apps, and the parts are

strong. The market has already shown that the technology and infrastructure works. But why does using it still feel like work? I'm going to say something controversial right now. The next billion crypto users should never have to touch a blockchain. Sure, their assets may live on a blockchain. The system will still be there because the transactions will still go back and forth. But the user should not have to run it. They should choose the result and the product should be the one that handles the path. This does not mean creating a new gatekeeper

and it does not mean taking control away from people. It means giving them that control to without forcing them to manage every single part of the financial system. And this is just not an idea for us. It is the problem that we're solving at change now. Right now in 2017 we started with one simple goal. We wanted to make crypto exchange simple. We wanted to give you the our customers the possibility to go from one asset to another without long setup complex steps or hidden limits. And for a while that

worked. But then we saw something important. One easy swap does not create an easy crypto experience. So we had to ask ourselves a bigger question. Do people really need more crypto tools or do they need fewer tools that work better together? That is the change that we're making at change now right this moment. We are moving from a product built around one crypto action to a super app built around the full life of a crypto user. And when I say super app, I do not

just mean more features in one place. Because a long list of tools all mashed together does not make a super app. The way those tools work together is the thing that does. A user may want to start by buying an asset. Then they may want to store it, swap part of it, trade it, or send it to someone. With a super app, the next step starts where the last one ended. Users assets, their actions, and their choices are all part of the one connected experience. And businesses face the same goddamn mess. A customer wants to pay in crypto. Another wants to

swap an asset. Someone at the company has to make the payment provider, the exchange, the ramp, and everything in between work together. It's still a box of parts. It just has a company logo on it, just like on my backpack over here. This is what makes Change Now a super app. Clients should be the ones who choose the results and we should be the ones who connect the parts. And that is why I brought this bag. When you look at it, you do not see the paper pattern.

You do not think about the thread, the tools, the cuts, or the glue. I had to wipe off my fingers. It actually makes them incredibly dry. Now that I think of it, you see something complete, something useful, something that works. All the parts are still there, but you do not have to manage them. Crypto should work the same way. So yes, the next billion people who come into crypto do not need to understand blockchains.

They need products that understand blockchains for them. They should simply be able to use their money as if they would fiat. Crypto has spent years making the leather better, the thread stronger, and the tools sharper. Now it is time to make the bag because frankly we are not living through easy times and they may get harder and when that happens nobody should have to figure out five apps, three networks and which bridge still works. Maybe then this bag stops being just a bag. Maybe it becomes the thing you are very glad you packed.

Thank you so much. I hope I didn't offend anyone. I hope it was interesting enough. Um, you can find me at the Change Now booth, which is right over there. You won't miss it. It's pretty big. Um, thank you for listening and I'll see you next time.