Building the Future of Finance: A Brief Analysis of NoFi's Prospects and Opportunities
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Building the Future of Finance: A Brief Analysis of NoFi's Prospects and Opportunities
NoFi is the bridge between the crypto space and the majority of early users.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Ben Basche
Translation: Block unicorn
While decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse form the foundation of an exciting new crypto-native internet, crypto/Web3 as a lasting concept—let alone a new technological paradigm—will not endure unless it meets the needs of ordinary people and breaks out of its insular niche. Fortunately for those trying to show relatives at Thanksgiving dinner the utopia of crypto finance, after years of being labeled merely “the future of finance,” crypto finally appears to be sprouting a wave of consumer-facing, everyday financial applications built on blockchain technology. This rising tide of No-Trust Finance (NoFi) apps is pointing toward a clear path for crypto’s mass adoption in mainstream markets. Without innovations in settlement, scaling, smart contracts, wallet infrastructure, and DeFi protocols, NoFi applications could not have been built upon earlier waves of speculative crypto adoption. While 5 to 10 million people currently transact on blockchains each month, the serviceable market for general financial services includes billions, meaning a vast latent market remains for NoFi to tap into.
Synchronous Development
In the early stages of adopting new technological paradigms, we often see synchronous development around similar ideas and problem areas, sometimes with slightly different solutions and assumptions. I previously highlighted this in a blog post about the wallet experience stack—a convergence among players tackling Web3 wallet-enabled identity and commerce through diverse approaches within a B2B middleware ecosystem. Similarly, in the realm of consumer finance in Web3, we’re seeing convergence as wallets, payment apps, neobanks, and centralized exchanges align around common, obvious use cases enabled by functional blockchain rails. Let’s look at some examples.
No-Trust Payment Applications
One irony of cryptocurrency is that payments—the most obvious canonical use case since crypto’s inception—have been among the last to truly develop and gain momentum. Paying with volatile assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum has clearly remained a niche activity, enabling things like DeFi and NFTs, but only with the emergence of stablecoins and cheap blockspace have blockchain-based payments truly begun to come into their own.
The most basic function of a crypto wallet—sending tokens—is finally user-friendly enough to deliver a Web2-grade experience. We now see many applications and infrastructures focused on achieving this goal, including sleek consumer “crypto Venmos” and global payment apps like Eco’s Sling and Beam. There's even a community crowdfunding and building a peer-to-peer payment app using $SEND meme coin with AA (account abstraction) support.
Unlike traditional crypto wallets, these apps resemble streamlined versions of early Cash apps in appearance and functionality, typically focusing on P2P payments for students and young people or specialized remittance services for immigrants and senders abroad.
No-Trust / Semi-Trusted Neobanks
While some emerging no-trust fintech companies are targeting narrow payment use cases (which are massive in themselves), others take a more comprehensive product approach, combining payments with additional stablecoin yield, multi-crypto accounts, investment features, and hybrid fiat-crypto accounts integrating traditional banking and card systems. Projects like Decaf and Paie (both Solana apps), along with Obvious’ upcoming IBAN-linked smart contract wallet, immediately come to mind. Even Malaysia’s exiled government is creating a no-trust neobank called Spring Development Bank on Polygon for its citizens. To be clear, these are centralized entities that represent users in interacting with traditional KYC financial systems through their centralized capabilities, yet their core functionality and value proposition lie in users interacting on-chain with their non-custodial wallets (or semi-custodial/MPC). Many functions once requiring banks (or challenger banks) are beginning to move on-chain, and these no-trust neobanks offer users simplified interfaces to leverage all functionalities of on-chain lending, borrowing, yield generation, and trading protocols within excellent UX. In some cases, no-trust neobanking features will pair with traditional banking functions, but as users’ financial “jobs” increasingly shift on-chain, traditional finance systems (much like centralized exchanges now seem to crypto users) become increasingly like dumb on-ramps.
Neobank 2.5
Although most no-trust payment apps and neobanks so far have been emerging crypto-native startups, we also see significant activity in the existing neobank/challenger bank space, including established neobanks offering non-custodial/semi-custodial wallets and crypto services for users, and custodial crypto-focused neobanks and investment models providing similar services in custodial formats. While not fully fledged Web3 non-custodial neobanks, they directly or indirectly utilize blockchain technology to provide services—we can call this category “Neobank 2.5.” Cenoa, based in Turkey and focused on regions like Turkey and Argentina, offers users custodial solutions to access USD stablecoins and on-chain yield protocols as inflation hedges in countries most affected by local currency volatility. More recently—and perhaps more significantly—PayPal has expanded its crypto efforts from custodial buying and selling to EVM-based stablecoins and companion embedded wallets, much like Yellow Card in Africa. Beyond typical fintechs becoming crypto neobanks, Brazil’s NuBank, Germany’s N26, the UK’s Monzo and Revolut, and the US’s Cogni are following similar paths. Neobanks operate in competitive environments seen as challengers to stodgy consumer banks, but in crypto, they find themselves shifting from challenger to challenged. They are doubling down on crypto offerings, becoming hybrid traditional finance and crypto neobanks. It wouldn’t be surprising to see larger-scale traditional consumer banks begin thinking similarly.
Centralized Exchanges
Centralized exchanges are among the oldest “apps” in crypto. Despite representing centralization within the crypto environment, they are doubling down on developing their own non-custodial wallets and quasi-super-apps, leveraging centralized infrastructure to serve growing numbers of these “fintech” crypto use cases. Binance Pay (often denominated in USDT or TRON-based USDT) holds notable influence and daily usage across cross-border remittance corridors and emerging markets, especially in Latin America. Coinbase offers USDC yield within its main app and staking aggregation via its standalone Coinbase Wallet app, complemented by semi-payment functionality launched on Base (e.g., Beam Eco), delivering financial services to existing users. Centralized exchanges are well-positioned to provide financial services to their existing user base and have invested in growth areas like standalone wallets to capture an expanding range of emerging use cases.
While exact scopes and methods may differ, what are all the above participants starting to converge around? Could it be actual consumer crypto fintech use cases—early signs of real product-market fit?
Users and Use Cases
There’s plenty written about early adopters of native crypto economies, but the crucial user group for crypto is clearly the “early majority” (in Geoffrey Moore’s terms)—those who genuinely solve everyday financial problems. To transition from early adopters to the early majority, a technological paradigm must “cross the chasm,” shifting from early adopters eager to explore novelty to the early majority simply trying to get things done in their lives.
Moore also described a typical process where vertical use cases emerge first—like a set of “bowling pins”—that gain traction before collectively “falling down,” as adjacent use cases create ample opportunity for horizontal expansion and generalization. This culminates in a “tornado,” where early use cases converge under massive adoption by the early majority, forming giant consolidated winning platforms and a suite of applications finding product-market fit. In our NoFi world, we’re seeing these “bowling pins” emerge, offering clues about what this tornado might look like.
Payments
As previously mentioned, despite sending value from A to B being seemingly obvious in crypto design, crypto payments were long considered mere novelties or implementation details for very localized crypto applications (or criminal activities). Even classic reference use cases lacked real momentum within crypto circles, becoming an inside joke. But this is rapidly changing. First interestingly, TRON and Binance gained real traction in everyday payments in emerging markets; now, increasing numbers of crypto application layers are repositioning around consumer payments powered by blockchain infrastructure that “just works.” A key catalyst here is clearly the rise of stablecoins like USDT, BUSD, and USDC, which play pivotal roles across other parts of the non-custodial fintech landscape. Broadly, we can divide observed payment momentum in crypto into two near-term areas and one mid-term area: peer-to-peer Venmo-like payments, remittance payments, and B2C payments. Creating a Web3 version of Venmo may be the most obvious decentralized crypto app, but only with stablecoins, cheap networks, Layer 2s, seedless custody, and account abstraction has crypto’s full functionality and benefits become consumable. These same advantages apply to international remittance payments, as crypto remittance flows begin flooding corridors like Latin America<>USA and Africa<>Europe.
Inflation Resistance
Particularly in emerging markets, inflation resistance closely ties to payments and remittances. Again, the primary factor here is stablecoins—especially dollar-denominated ones—as individuals in countries with weak or volatile currencies seek ways to protect wealth. Latin America leads this trend predictably due to its unstable monetary backdrop, but we see this extending wherever people desire gold-standard value preservation—the U.S. dollar (no offense to monetary maximalists). No-custody financial apps can provide anyone globally with basic dollar access (often easier/cheaper than traditional forex channels), provided they can onboard from fiat somehow. These dollars can be held, placed in interest-bearing accounts, and sent globally at ever-lower costs to anyone with a compatible wallet.
Savings / Yield
Everyone with surplus cash needs somewhere to store and preserve value. We see no-custody financial apps leveraging on-chain infrastructure to offer users easy-to-use, consumer-friendly interfaces to earn yield and interest. While on-chain rates were once low, more aggressive interest policies from centralized stablecoin issuers matching off-chain fixed-income environments have pushed on-chain rates close to off-chain money market rates. Even without the huge fundamental rate advantage DeFi had during its boom phase for savings accounts, various permissionless yield products still allow people to effectively grow savings. DEX LP positions targeting stable or blue-chip pairs, conservative money market positions, stablecoin risk-free rates, and conservative yield-aggregation strategies provide potential on-chain yield sources for NoFi apps acting on behalf of users—whether for their stable assets (thus broadening inflation-hedging use cases) or any volatile/investment assets. We see outlines of this experience in UX-focused Web3-native apps like Instadapp and Zerion, making depositing funds into yield positions just one or two clicks, and consumer apps like Cenoa mentioned earlier simplifying it entirely into a “Savings” feature.
Borrowing
On-chain borrowing is harder to bring to consumers than lending because most global credit is undercollateralized or unsecured, yet we still see interesting progress and innovation. NoFi apps haven’t fully embraced this (except Binance actually offering crypto loans to users), but we expect this to change soon as foundational protocol advances trickle into interfaces. MakerDAO’s Spark Protocol lets you borrow DAI at a fixed 3.19% rate (with optional linked debit cards for spending), highly attractive today if you’re willing to provide double collateral. It’ll be interesting to see whether it attracts retail borrowers priced out of personal loans under current interest rate and credit scoring regimes who want locked-in low-rate loans for purchases without spending actual funds. Alchemix offers “self-repaying loans”—potentially useful for car purchases or home down payments. DeFi protocols like Goldfinch are diving deep into unsecured lending for off-chain businesses—an idea potentially scalable to millions of small enterprises, whose learnings will absolutely inform the next wave of builders attempting more accessible credit apps, whether oracle-based unsecured models, post-Sybil reputation models, or innovative new collateralized loan protocols with better terms. The ultimate adversary is opaque, centralized, Orwellian credit bureaus and traditional banking credit ecosystems—once DeFi proposes superior solutions, NoFi will be able to present them to consumers.
Foreign Exchange / Multi-Currency Accounts
For certain user groups—international students, expats, freelancers, digital nomads—handling multiple currencies is part of life. Receiving payment in one currency but needing to send home another, paying for SaaS apps in another currency, having multiple clients or side gigs paying in various currencies—all require quick fund exchanges between currencies. Such exchanges via traditional banking systems can be cumbersome, slow, and expensive; for some, administrative overhead may even be prohibitive. Through stablecoins and decentralized exchanges (DEXes) offered by NoFi apps, people can maintain a “crypto multi-currency account” holding various stablecoins they can send, swap, or save according to need. Among these same user groups, multi-currency accounts have already become popular features in non-crypto fintech/neobank apps. As more crypto neobanks target these use cases and existing fintech companies explore blockchain alternatives, these two sets of use cases are expected to gradually converge over time.
Trading / Investing
Trading was crypto’s original core use case, so we won’t dwell on it here except to note that opportunities to invest—even in risky assets—are something traditional fintechs have pushed in equities for some time (think Robinhood), representing a valid user demand that NoFi tech apps will obviously serve. Decentralized exchanges (DEXes), bridges, and aggregators enable consumer apps to relatively easily offer non-custodial cryptocurrency trading to users, allowing them controlled exposure to risk. As more real-world assets (RWA) become tokenized on-chain—from individual apps offering everything from crypto, stocks, FX, real estate, to fixed income—the prospect becomes tangible for NoFi apps. If a digital dollar DeFi yield protocol helps hedge current inflation and hit monthly savings goals, why not use the same app to simply allocate leftover funds into the latest hot crypto or stock?
Implementation Patterns
Of course, synchronous evolution around problem spaces comes hand-in-hand with synchronous evolution around solution spaces. As we finally begin seeing NoFi apps capable of competing reasonably in large markets, we observe common threads supporting different approaches. Let’s start high-level at the settlement layer and work down to the application layer, then dive into key technical themes.
Multi-Party Computation (MPC), Account Abstraction, and Seed Phrase Elimination
Clearly, the next billion users won’t securely store 24-word phrases. Over the past 12 months, the crypto industry has largely taken this meme seriously, launching numerous implementations, standards, and SDKs helping dApp developers deliver Web2-style login experiences with crypto wallets. I detailed this space in my “Wallet-Centric Experience Stack” article, but it bears repeating: secure self-custody solutions enabling Web2-style logins and recovery are vital for NoFi application-layer growth. Regardless of whether specific implementations rely on MPC, smart accounts, or hybrids thereof, NoFi apps are leveraging cutting-edge wallet experience stack middleware innovations and bringing them to the masses. Eco from Beam uses ERC-4337-compatible smart accounts and account abstraction infrastructure on Optimism (and soon Base) to deliver seedless onboarding and sub-five-cent transaction experiences, accessible even to users who’ve never set up a wallet before.
Solana
As a known Ethereum fanboy, I must give Solana its due credit. Sling, Decaf, and Key.app all run on Solana and are arguably three of the smoothest NoFi apps currently in existence. While Solana has long excelled cost-wise (despite decentralization trade-offs), its standout presence in the NoFi space lies in the quality of application builders and their focus on everyday user value. Thus, while Ethereum’s sidechain ecosystem rapidly closes Solana’s gaps in cost and speed, Solana’s app ecosystem may lead slightly ahead in terms of innovative NoFi user experiences.
Zaps, Meta-Transactions, Intent
Without diving into extensive details about blockchain intent and MEV futures, I simply want to note that bundling multiple on-chain operations together to simplify transactions for users isn't just about helping speculators get optimal limit order prices. Whether on-chain “zaps” or “plans” of multiple transactions executed together, or off-chain signed messages representing user intent, NoFi apps can leverage combining various transaction types and transaction-like instructions to simply deliver what users seek. Soon in NoFi apps, minor frictions like buttons labeled “Swap to USDC and Save” or “Swap to ETH and Stake” will disappear.
Block unicorn note: Zaps refer to consolidating a series of interaction flows into a single-step/one-click operation, abbreviated as Zaps.
Integrating Cryptocurrency with Traditional Financial Banking and Payment Systems
Another implementation theme we see in this NoFi wave is meaningful integration between crypto and traditional finance. One aspect is that entities operating these apps often add extra value by establishing relationships with banks or partnering with banking infrastructure providers. Non-custodial neobanks—essentially 95% non-custodial wallets—can enhance their offerings by adding fiat-to-crypto services and bank accounts. Automatically routing part of a paycheck into a non-custodial wallet makes other services within the wallet more valuable and essential, while being able to swipe or tap crypto at grocery stores further extends this value. Users undergo KYC when using these services, sacrificing some anonymity—but for most users, real life is already KYC’d, and this simply integrates crypto better into their lives. With Visa and Mastercard already experimenting with payments using EVM smart accounts and account abstraction, hybrid worlds linking on-chain and off-chain within user interfaces are becoming increasingly common.
Real-World Asset Tokenization
As previously noted, increasing volumes of high-quality real-world assets are being tokenized, enabling novel consumer financial products otherwise impossible. The most direct way is through stablecoins themselves. Issuers like Circle and Tether back tokens with billions invested in short-term paper and increasingly pass yields from Treasuries and other short-term off-chain securities to on-chain stablecoin holders. Another example is the recent wave of on-chain U.S. Treasuries, letting crypto investors earn yields via platforms like Ondo Finance. While KYC is required (and geographical restrictions may apply depending on desired products), once completed, users can access substantial yields within a user-friendly on-chain wallet without navigating confusing brokerage apps. As more valuable real-world assets get tokenized and brought on-chain, they unlock greater potential financial products for regular users.
Why Now?
To understand why we’re now seeing explosive growth in these use cases (for better or worse, the TRX chain boasts 2 million DAU) and why serious players like PayPal are joining, we must consider several converging factors.
Stablecoins
The first and most obvious reason for NoFi’s rapid rise now is the maturation of the stablecoin ecosystem. Digital dollars (and increasingly other fiat currencies) are arguably blockchain’s killer app to date. As discussed in most examples, stablecoins are lifelines for practical everyday commerce—something volatile cryptocurrencies cannot achieve. Frictionless digital fiat is permeating various applications, regions, and domains. This momentum accelerates rather than slows—Circle alone generated over $700 million in revenue in H1 2023 from $26 billion in USDC issuance, already surpassing its total 2022 revenue.
Tether earns massive profits and, if trends continue, could become a systemically important holder of U.S. Treasuries. Yet beyond sheer issuance volume or revenue stats, what matters more is adoption by ordinary users and businesses for mundane, necessary tasks—especially underserved populations in developing nations. In developed markets, explosive mainstream usage hasn’t emerged yet, but reasons exist to believe this could change (more below).
Maturity of Scaling Solutions
Regarding the blockchain scalability war, I don’t want to prematurely declare trilemma victory on practical grounds. Though much architecture, engineering, and decentralization remain to build in the scalability ecosystem, we’re nearing the end of an era where decentralized blockchains are too expensive and cumbersome for daily use. Solana’s transaction costs have dropped to nearly negligible levels. Ethereum’s “Manhattan Project”-style focus on a rollup-centric roadmap is finally yielding real results. We’ll see dramatic rollup cost reductions from EIP-4844 and untapped scalability advantages across zk domains. Moreover, a thriving L2 infrastructure ecosystem enables apps to easily launch dedicated “Rollapps” for maximum control, performance, and profitability. Overall, crypto—especially Ethereum—has endured a “hard season” in scalability, and these efforts are producing excellent “good enough” L2 solutions applicable to almost any use case with just a hard fork. Consequently, NoFi apps enter the most permissive blockspace environment in crypto history, with multiple solid and continuously improving network options available.
Innovations in Wallet Technology
As noted, products like MPC, account-abstraction-powered smart accounts with gasless transactions, and tools like Privy and Web3Auth tightly integrate the entire “wallet stack,” offering developers easier ways to build apps atop crypto functionality with deep native wallet capabilities. The next wave of crypto neobanks and non-custodial fintech apps won’t worry about user seed phrases or requiring installed wallets. Not only are blockchains finally cheap enough, but advanced smart account interactions can now be added with just a few lines of JavaScript.
Macro Tailwinds
Stepping back from crypto itself to examine its operating context, we see global trends making NoFi innovation more attractive and necessary. Inflation volatility has returned strongly, particularly in developing nations with weak currencies, fueling desires to avoid exposure to international and local inflation swings. E-commerce attempts to penetrate every corner of Earth, but traditional fintech innovation falters where local banking and payment infrastructure is weak or internet access lacking. Long-term, tedious improvements in market efficiency advance by cutting centralized (i.e., costly) intermediaries.
Blockchain as a Competitive Vehicle
All the above factors—and more—converge, giving blockchains multiple “vehicles” to compete in fintech applications. Rather than relying on speculative future value or ideology, crypto begins incorporating cool, tangible realities into its value proposition within this emerging NoFi domain.
Transaction Costs
Centralized intermediaries have profit requirements, and the more stacked they are to transfer value from point A to B, the more profit extracted from consumers and enterprises. Blockchains can consolidate intermediaries into smart contracts, doing more with fewer resources fundamentally. Nowhere is crypto’s emerging victory clearer than in lowering international payment transaction costs. Sending a payment between two countries via the international wire system costs nearly $100, whereas sending via USDC costs less than a dollar. As gas fees and scalability cease being limiting factors, crypto payment systems’ clear transaction cost advantage will permeate every conceivable consumer- and enterprise-facing service delivered via blockchain. Every profit margin recoverable through this method will be reclaimed. Autonomous DeFi protocols may extract more “profit space” from finance, and NoFi apps can return these profits to consumers via better financial products.
Composability
Composability exceeds simple interoperability—it refers to how different ecosystem components interconnect to create higher-order, more complex value. At the most basic level, EVM-wallet-based NoFi products instantly gain abilities to pay any other EVM wallet on-chain, interact with DeFi protocols, read identity NFTs from other apps, and create EVM application logic using wallets. While somewhat abstract, inseparable from general interoperability and network effects, crypto’s unique composability allows combining various services for greater end-user value. Combined with the next attribute—permissionlessness—NoFi builders gain an enormous sandbox upon enabling users to connect to blockchains, easily activating trading, lending, borrowing, payments, or anything combining or building atop them.
Permissionlessness
Building fintech apps, integrating with complementary providers or value-added services can be tedious, expensive, and time-consuming. Integration with crypto protocols differs entirely—while UX hurdles may remain when using some protocols, the reality remains that anyone globally can add a basic “Savings” feature to their app if it’s a wallet connecting to Compound or Aave. This permissionless integration enables faster innovation cycles and broader potential building blocks for compelling financial products and experiences.
Reduced Business Footprint and Liability Surface
A more intriguing aspect of non-custodial finance making it attractive to fintech players is the distinct liability distribution created by the non-custodial nature itself—between users, developers, and other services. Combined with the above permissionlessness, non-custodiality not only reduces initial friction when integrating content like DEX trades into your app but also (in many jurisdictions) legally and regulatorily positions you favorably compared to integrating traditional stock trading. The same applies to activities like lending, usually reserved for traditional banks, but accessible via DeFi protocols to anyone with a wallet—including your customers. NoFi apps can offer financial services, BD licenses, MTL licenses, or even bank licenses if you strategically shift responsibilities on-chain (within your jurisdiction) and partner with regulated third-party providers like regulated ramps. Experiments even exist around more decentralized wealth management conducted advisor-style on-chain (though again, not legal advice). This completely overturns traditional fintech app development, implying a broader range of potential participants in financial services. By minimizing off-chain business footprint and earning money via transaction interface taxes, NoFi apps can actually enter markets inaccessible through non-crypto means.
User Experience (UX)
Could user experience (UX) be a potential selling point for crypto financial services? Didn’t poor UX prevent mass adoption? While not downplaying ongoing work needed to improve crypto UX, we can actually expect crypto to deliver significant UX advantages over non-crypto tech over time. Take login and payment as examples. Achieving this fully requires sufficient numbers of crypto-supported apps and wallet-holding users, but the ability for people to simply connect a wallet and pay—without entering extra information—because they control their private keys, will eventually offer better experiences than Web2. Compared to annoying wire transfer screens when sending international payments from banks, instant crypto payments could inherently involve fewer clicks than even the fastest Web2 equivalents. Currently, UX supports and opposes crypto equally, but this will soon change (due to some reasons above), creating opportunities for essentially inverted sovereign user experiences—the simplicity implied by wallets will attract users purely on ease of use.
What’s Next?
No-Trust Finance (NoFi) is beginning to enter ideal conditions. I believe the number of players vying for this opportunity will grow tenfold in the coming years. This field won’t just become intensely competitive—it will merge with existing competitive dynamics in fintech and neobanking, forming a unified dynamic whole. Predicting winners accurately is difficult, but several future directions warrant attention.
Social and Social Finance
Almost parallel to all this NoFi content is a thriving ecosystem of decentralized social networks, much of it centered around crypto. Protocols like Lens, Farcaster, and BlueSky open entirely new design spaces for social apps. As this social network design explodes, business model innovations for creators and others will likely merge with the emerging NoFi meta-domain. Last week in the depths of crypto Twitter, we saw a fascinating experiment with social tokens on Friend.tech—still very early and niche, but as more innovation occurs in so-called “decentralized social (DeSo),” mutual influences will grow. Perhaps the most impactful example would be if Twitter/X entered crypto payments. Additionally, ongoing experiments in community finance, microloans, social insurance, and basic income programs on-chain are technically simpler than ever—they should evolve into multi-person finance domains addressing real-world human problems.
B2C Messaging and Conversational Blockchain Commerce
Messaging protocols like XMTP are finally gaining adoption in consumer wallets—not just in Coinbase Wallet but also in B2B experience stack providers like Dynamic.xyz. This hints at powerful commercial use cases involving conversations between consumers and dApps or even merchants. Conversational support, sales, and marketing will enter wallet-based commerce, adding new dimensions for NoFi apps. Will they become B2C platforms themselves (like Decaf with its consumer wallet and merchant crypto PoS solution), or attempt to become universal blockchain commerce clients enabling transactional messaging across permitted apps? This would open an entirely new trusted commercial communication domain—increasingly critical as AI clogs all digital channels and spammers grow more effective.
Experience Stack Providers Focusing More on NoFi as a Use Case
I expect wallet experience stack providers mentioned in this article and my other writings to increasingly focus on NoFi as a vertical. Beyond gaming, NFTs, and traditional DeFi, these consumer-facing financial apps perfectly embody middleware product value propositions—delivering Web2-like experiences atop Web3 rails. With over 40 well-funded companies and projects in this space, their focus will yield better NoFi development solutions and more killer apps.
Finally Emerging Momentum in Developed Markets
Early NoFi progress focused mostly on emerging markets or people connected to them. This intuitively makes sense, as these regions are typically underserved, while wealthy nations often over-serve consumers. But as the above forces act within the system, we’ll see increasing innovation in markets where consumers are over-served in obvious dimensions but under-served in subtle ones. This will likely manifest as innovation flowing back from developing to more developed nations.
No-Trust Super Apps
Finally, although this article assumes many different NoFi app approaches, it’s entirely possible that a few dominant players could aggregate these “unfinished financial functions” into “No-Trust Super Apps” akin to WeChat or GoTo. These apps could not only perform all the above tasks but also connect the entire decentralized internet via some dApp browser (or more likely, a “mini-program” style micro-app framework). Some general-purpose Web3 wallets certainly hope for this outcome, and many are fundraising around this thesis. While I think one of the current batch of integrated Web3 wallets might reach super-app scale and scope, I suspect it’s more likely to be either existing giant tech companies and smartphone manufacturers—or NoFi apps originating from a more mass-market-focused, limited-initial-scope perspective.
Conclusion
While I eagerly anticipate radically novel use cases directly from on-chain culture, fully decentralized internet and metaverse will take time. Meanwhile, NoFi already exists—it’s the bridge enabling crypto to cross over to the early majority.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
@basche42
