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Cryptocurrency is no longer a test product; billions flow through the blockchain every day. Stablecoins enable cross-border payments, and Layer 2 solutions significantly enhance Ethereum's processing capacity. But for users, the experience is still stuck in 2019: fragmented, fragile, and cumbersome.
The state of affairs in 2025.
In 2025, you can stake ETH, swap tokens, and send USDC globally.
But wanting to achieve these three things at once? Difficult!
——48% of users need multiple wallets to operate on different chains.
——21% of users have been scammed by phishing attacks in the past year.
You have to confirm transactions 5 times, pay gas fees 3 times, and pray nothing goes wrong.
And the result? Only 12% of users feel that payments are their favorite feature.
This is not user experience; this is user torment. (2025 On-chain UX Report) What did it say? The (2025 On-chain UX Report) published by @reown_ clearly reveals these issues. The report combines over 1,000 user surveys, @nansen_ai's wallet data, and protocol-level interviews to answer a simple question:
What will it feel like to use cryptocurrency in 2025? Are we ready to welcome the next 100 million users?
Report Highlights: 5 numbers tell a story.
1️⃣ 54% of users have purchased things with cryptocurrency, but only 12% feel that payments are the best feature.
2️⃣ 69% of users feel that on-chain operations are safe, but 21% admit to being scammed by phishing.
3️⃣ The gas fees for the emerging Layer 2 chain Base have increased by 464% in a year, outpacing all other Rollups.
4️⃣ 48% of users have to use multiple wallets just to jump between different chains.
5️⃣ Each chain begins to 'choose its path': Ethereum focuses on settlement, Solana emphasizes fast transactions, Base experiments, and BNB chain revolves around exchanges.
The harsh realities in the report (you can imagine).
1) Multi-chain = multiple wallets = chaos 🔻
48% of users need multiple wallets to navigate different chains. You're not operating in 'multi-chain'; you're opening a bunch of browser tabs: using Metamask on Chrome, Phantom on Brave, Rabby on mobile, and you still need Keplr for the Cosmos dashboard.
2) People are not using cryptocurrency to buy things; they are trading coins 🔻
Although 54% of users have tried on-chain payments, only 12% feel this is the best experience.
Why? Because buying a cup of coffee with cryptocurrency is slower than clicking on coffee. You have to swap tokens, transfer across chains, confirm gas fees, go through the merchant's contract, and pray the payment page doesn't crash.
Users come here not to 'buy things', but to trade coins, mint meme coins, and chase the next hot project.
3) Security is a feeling, phishing is a reality 🔻
69% of users feel that using cryptocurrency is quite safe, but 21% have been scammed by phishing links or fake DApps in the past year.
This means that 1 in 5 users has lost money from clicking the wrong link; it's not that the protocol has vulnerabilities, but they were scammed.
The development team thinks optimizing processes can increase trust, but trust is not a smooth loading animation or transaction confirmation. Trust is ensuring users are not deceived during fast-paced operations.
▶️ Some of my doubts.
The future of AI wallets lacks a foundation of trust.
Reown envisions future wallets that can automatically select chains, simulate attacks, and confirm transactions for you. Sounds cool, but if the wallet's logic is not transparent, users are just trading one learning cost for another. Automation is only useful when users can understand why the machine says 'yes' or 'no'.
▶️ Social wallets are not a universal remedy.
Social wallets do lower the entry barrier for beginners, but the report shows that a third of users do not trust this thing. Unless losing your Twitter account won't result in losing all your funds, social wallets can only serve as introductory tools, far from daily use.
▶️ Three suggestions for developers.
🔹 Hide the complexity of chains; don't annoy users.
Create a simple 'send' button that automatically finds the cheapest and safest path behind the scenes.
Goal: Reduce the number of wallets per active user to less than 2.
🔹 Dual-mode operation.
——Newbies use 'Turbo mode': automatically confirm small transactions, safety tips are clear at a glance.
——Veterans use 'Manual mode': transaction numbers, gas fees, and contract details are clear.
——Measurement Index: Change in user abandonment rate before and after optimization.
🔹 Prioritize security.
Pre-signing simulations, domain binding authorizations, contract calls displayed in human-understandable language.
Goal: Reduce the phishing victim rate from 21% to single digits next year.
📍Summary
The current cryptocurrency experience is not 'trustless' at all, but rather shifts trust to chains, wallets, cross-chain bridges, and various pop-ups. Tools have become stronger, but the experience has turned into a relay race, where users have to pray nothing goes wrong when they click the wrong thing. On-chain applications need to be as simple as clicking the 'buy' button in the App Store; otherwise, we're not attracting users, but testing their patience.