Mass Adoption is all nonsense, Mass Admission is the truth
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Mass Adoption is all nonsense, Mass Admission is the truth
The existing market has never been the issue—it's high-frequency users that matter.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Weituo Crypto
Old hands all know that whenever the market is sluggish, people blame it on failing to attract Web2 users—hence no new capital flowing in. This is the so-called "Mass Adoption" narrative: that crypto's "Web3" products must cater to non-profit-driven Web2 users.
This logic is like saying “African children will starve because you waste food in China”—emotionally resonant but utterly illogical 👇
🤷♂️ Mass Adoption – First, Who Exactly Is the "Mass"?
Who exactly are the "masses"? Don't vaguely say "traditional Web2 users"—Bullshit. The "mass" consists of diverse yet classifiable individuals.
A blind person doesn't drive a domestic electric car not because they don’t support local brands, but because they can’t get a driver’s license (no demand). Any product sustains user engagement only when it meets an irreplaceable need with an irreplaceable solution. This applies to cars—and to crypto.
Whether you agree or not, crypto has boundaries. All its features (privacy, decentralization, etc.) stem from one core value—permissionlessness—which isn't something most people on Earth actually need. Permissionlessness primarily addresses restrictions imposed by banks, governments, and large corporations on freedom: when banks block your account or payments, you insist on doing it anyway; when governments ban certain investments or gambling, you do it anyway; when big companies or governments censor speech, you speak anyway.
Those who have this need are definitely not the majority—the majority are domesticated livestock conditioned by the system. Instead, they are the arbitrage-savvy, anti-establishment "social outliers"—I refer to such individuals as having a "trader" mindset (of course, personality traits aren't black-and-white, but exist along a spectrum).
They may not actually run businesses, nor necessarily be wealthy, but they’re inherently a minority—otherwise, the current order couldn't be maintained.
These people operate under the principle of “talking business when doing business.” If ordinary people see getting a stable job as selling themselves wholesale to an “organization” as an intermediary, then crypto’s audience consists of those who seek to fully price every unit of their time, energy, and social capital—to sell “themselves” at the best possible price. Such people are inevitably profit-driven above all else.
😂 Have We Already Achieved Mass Adoption?
Within the "trader" spectrum I described, how many people haven’t touched crypto yet?
According to UN data, the global adult population has an average annual income of $23,000. Assume 10% of that goes into crypto—regardless of what they do with it—that’s $18.4 trillion across 8 billion people. Binance’s Q1 2024 spot trading volume was $1.12 trillion, implying over $13 trillion annually in spot alone. That leaves more than 30% room to grow. Once we include other exchanges, we might have already surpassed that number.
Of course, averages can be misleading. Looking instead at the top 10% of global earners—who capture 52% of total global income—that’s roughly 800 million people. Crypto.com reported 520 million global crypto users in 2023, leaving about 30% untapped. Once this gap closes, we’ll likely see growth similar to the gambling industry (~4.7% annually), roughly equivalent to the Fed interest rate.
The reason you feel there are no new users entering is because the market is approaching its real TAM ceiling. By 2024, anyone with even basic higher education who hasn’t heard of Bitcoin is the exception.
Still want to “take the show to the countryside” and “mass adopt” Web2 users? 😂 Anyone remotely susceptible to being adopted has probably already encountered crypto.
♠️ It’s Never About the Market Size—It’s About High-Frequency Users
I have experience in the gambling industry, both online and offline—it’s one of the largest industries globally. From an overall industry perspective, applying the “Mass Adoption” logic, gambling doesn’t really have concepts of incremental vs.存量 markets—in theory, every wealthy person is a potential customer, because rich people naturally have a gambling instinct. Gambling industry growth correlates with global inflation.
Offline gambling still faces geographical limitations, whereas crypto is inherently global and unaffected by regional tourism. Thus, at the macro-industry level, crypto and gambling follow the same logic. A bad year isn’t due to lack of new users—just as casinos don’t compete for foot traffic. It’s because existing users are betting less and transacting less frequently.
Casinos mainly rely on two types of players: one group is highly skilled and addicted to specific games—like slot machines or baccarat, often older folks who go daily (high frequency). The other group, contributing up to 80% of revenue, are VIPs (you can think of them as whales).
🤜 Same logic applies: the essence of crypto growth is cultivating high-frequency users and whales.
🧘♂️ Mass Admission, Not Mass Adoption
How many people actually understand how slot machine scoring works? How many can play baccarat? Texas Hold’em? Learning these games is far more costly than learning crypto: complex rules, risk-taking psychology, entry barriers (membership, chip exchange, etc.).
Why doesn’t the casino industry face an “adoption” problem? Because casinos provide an irreplaceable solution to an irreplaceable need (gambling). They are clear with customers: you come here to win money. If you want to win, you must learn the house rules. The casino admits you (Admission)—it doesn’t adapt to your other identities or everyday needs (Adoption).
Can you imagine a casino promoting, “We’re building a social network for gamblers so they spend more at our whisky bar instead of coming here just to win money”? At most, the gambling industry evolves from offline to online, accepts more payment methods, adds flashier slot themes, improves UX—but never loses focus on the core.
Likewise, crypto/Web3 must be crystal clear: “Come here to make money!” Admit the world’s “traders” to try their luck, on the condition that they learn crypto’s rules. Their way of making money involves financialized games—trading, staking, lending—all revolving around this core logic.
Those who don’t play by the rules (e.g., launching projects without understanding the three-balance framework, blindly following KOLs to pump coins), or those too incompetent and end up bankrupt, should be filtered out. The survivors—the skilled ones—become habitual, high-frequency users. The top performers earn entry to the VIP room. So what constitutes “building”? Enabling more people to enter the trial, enter faster, engage in more diverse and exciting trials, increase total bets, sustain longer gameplay, and offer status-signaling perks (casinos sell watches and luxury goods; in crypto, perhaps NFTs?). This applies not just to project design, but also growth strategy.
Summary
Mass Admission is my core framework—often the very first lens—I use when evaluating or building projects. Apply this logic and ask yourself: why are memes hot? Why inscriptions? Why Solana—not the full ETH ecosystem (except Base), VC coins, or RWA? Why do I say what we truly lack are devs, not “users”?
I believe you’ll arrive at different answers.
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