The internet was around for about two decades before the arrival of the web supercharged its growth. The ease of using a web browser made broad consumer adoption possible. Mobile payments were around for at least a decade before they started to take off. Again the key factor to adoption was ease of use – this time in the form of wallets that are actually integrated with in-app payments and widely accepted at the point of sale such as Google and Apple Pay (in other parts of the world adoption was driven by carrier billing or pre-payment – again questions of convenience).

Similarly crypto is approaching a decade of existence. And we are still looking for the massive increase in the ease of use that will enable broad adoption. It is possible that clinging to the browser and wallet metaphors may be holding us back. The browser is strongly associated with content. The wallet is strongly associated with payments. But crypto is so much more than both: it is a new infrastructure for decentralized systems.

Lots of smart people are working on browsers and wallets that are crypto enabled. And I am glad that’s happening, as the right answer may come from that work. But it would also be good to see experimentation with a new metaphor. Candidates that come to mind are: agent, proxy, and authenticator. A piece of software that I, the enduser, control and that represents me vis-a-vis the decentralized infrastructure.

What would be included in such a “representation” app? Authenticating myself and granting/revoking access to my data. Storing and managing my private keys (possibly in a highly abstracted manner, where I don’t even need to know what a key looks like). What does representation *not* have to include? The UI/UX of decentralized applications can be separate and handled by each app, including payment and investing applications. Some of the apps can be web based and others native (or the same app can have a web and a native experience). The closest thing we have to this representation concept today are password managers.

If you are aware of any projects that are explicitly pursuing this direction, I would love to hear about them.