my name is Syd I'm the product Li that
coinbase wallet and you know today I
want to talk to you guys about the apps
right and specifically what is dappered
option looked like and what can we do to
get to where we are today and to a new
world where there's millions of users
using the apps so let's just kick off
with that right like decentralized apps
like here we are the biggest developer
conference for what might be the most
promising smart contract platform in
history and we all think that I think we
all believe that the apps are the future
of how consumers will experience crypto
right it's a it's a packaged product
where people can go in and do something
that has that's that's based on crypto
and so we all share this excitement
right if you look at this chart I think
some of you may have seen this before
but the numbers and the adoption has
been staggering the the shirin amount of
building that's been happening right
we're almost 20,000 eath related github
repos and that's that's amazing that
kind of adoption curve does not happen
very often and it's the same story with
gaps right we've steadily seen the
number of gaps increasing
quarter-on-quarter just been like steady
growth and from all of our conversations
in the ecosystem it's clear that this
piece is not gonna is only going to
improve from here and this turns more
DAPs in the pipeline that are about to
get launched but when you look at actual
adoption and traction right like the
number of users using crypto that hasn't
really taken off and so you know that's
13,000 users is about what you would get
from like a second tier app in the App
Store right it's not across the entire
ecosystem and it's the same story with
each transaction volumes right like
daily daffy volumes are are tiny and so
what's going on right this is not this
is not good at all like what's what's
happening like on the one hand you have
an amazing amount of innovation
creativity building happening this
worldwide movement but users aren't
biting and so what's going wrong what
can we do better and to get out of this
situation
so before we before we dig in there
though like why do I care right like
what's the what's the story and I've
been spending the last year working on
this product coinbase wallet some of you
may know it as toshi and for those who
don't know it it's a it's an app in the
App Store
and the place tours available - and you
want to download and we are a user
controlled crypto wallet we support all
the etherium digital assets so ERC 20
tokens GRC 721 collectibles
we're also def browser and so we create
a bunch of gaps and we'll support any
web 3d objects based app and so it's a
really you know easy form factor and
popular around the world to be able to
used apps on mobile we were the first
mobile app browser where we we featured
crypto keys back when they launched in
December we were also the first popular
wallet to support collectibles and so
obviously crypto keys was the first and
there's been you know hundreds more to
come after that and at this point we
feature around 87 apps and it's really a
cross-section of everything that's
happening in the ecosystem so there's
all the financial services you have
decentralized exchanges you have
investment platforms borrowing platforms
then you have all of the games and
collectibles all of that entire kind of
subspace then you have decentralized
social media decentralized market places
and even jobs platforms where you can do
stuff and unencrypt oh so pretty pretty
quite a quite a lot of activity going on
and we try and curate the best apps and
present them to our users so that they
can a find it find them easier find
what's what's hot what's popular what's
useful and then also we have some
guardrails so you know if you're new to
crypto we explain what gaps are what
ethers and so really like the the target
audience is is people that are
relatively new and and relatively like
inexperienced in crypto so why did we
even built go and base wallet I think
the the idea for us has been that you
probably know coin based because of our
first products right the brokerage and
the exchange and those were successful
in onboarding millions of users into the
investment phase of cryptocurrency
and the investment phase is really
people buying crypto because it
appreciates in value but I think what
we're all excited about most excited
about is the actual utility phase where
people start to use crypto and that's
where coin based wallet comes in and
it's the first of several products that
we've launched in this space and so we
present this product coin being the
gateway to the decentralized web where
you can access all of these tabs and so
over the last year we've just had this
option
engage with all the developers in the
space getting all of you guys get to
know what you're building try and create
a platform to make the app successful
and give them a stage to all of our
users and you know we also have the full
spectrum of users right we have some
very early adopters and then we have
like complete crypto nerds like you know
like a lot of us in the in the audience
and that gives us the kind of feedback
which is you know much more kind of a
lot more granular and like you know
reactions of what people are like feel
like when they first experience crypto
and so reflecting on all of these kind
of exchanges both with developers with
and people building gaps as well as
early adopters of end users of crypto
right we've we've come up with the list
of the three things that we think are
the most important kind of hurdles to
adoption and so what's holding back the
adoption is basically the first is use
case right and I think it's the most
fundamental problem that we have is like
what problem are these products and
these gaps actually solving the second
is assuming that you know they're
solving a good problem how usable other
products and the third is you know are
these products actually able to support
many millions of users at scale and so
this is roughly ordered in in what we
think is the importance right like first
you have to be solving an important
problem second is of course then comes
usability and then comes scalability so
let's tackle number one so we we were
given with ethers created we were given
this amazing tool right a
turing-complete programming language
operating on top of a decentralized
borderless trustless platform right just
something that we never had before and
for the first time we had the concept of
digitally native programmable value and
I think all of us agree that this
building block is as powerful as the
internet was when it first came along
thirty years ago right incredibly
powerful lots of promise and what have
we built with it so far well mostly
digital cats right and so and I'm being
facetious obviously because I just
showed you like a bunch of different
apps solving a bunch of different use
cases but really when I go outside of
our crypto community and you know I talk
to people and they like
Hey what what's the most popular tap-in
and it's hard to keep a straight face
when you tell them or well it's been
these like digital cats that you can buy
and and so the problem is that no one
has yet built apps that really solve
user problems that let you know that
that people feel a lot of pain around
and so no there isn't an app out there
where people wake up every morning and
they're like in this hundreds of
thousands of people that say I really
need this tap I need I need to use it
right oh if the tap in to exist that it
would leave a vacuum in their lives and
so so you know that's that's a bit of a
hurdle but maybe that's okay for the
first generation right so we're
increasingly seeing the first generation
of the apps as being kind of primitives
these were you know we were given a new
technology a few years ago and we build
proofs of concept right these are the
things that you can do when you're given
a smart contract platform right you can
create fungible tokens you can create
non-functional tokens you can create
identity on the blockchain you can write
smart contracts that enable trustless
transfer you can enable you can create
smart contracts that allow you to
deposit assets and then withdraw them
withdraw collateral against those those
assets that you've deposited you can
create stable stable coins you can
create state channels so these are all
proofs of concept of the things that we
can do but I think what needs to happen
next is the next generation of taps and
so you know Sam Altman of YC once said
write like make something that people
want and this has now become something
of a mantra for like the startup factory
that's YC and it is because this this
idea works right the the next set of
gaps we need to change our mindset from
developers that are kind of exploring
and playing with this technology to
entrepreneurs that are trying to build
businesses and solve real problems and
the good news is that there's a playbook
for this right there's an established
playbook for this you you find problems
that people really need to solve you
build a product around it you talk to
your users non-stop and iterate and
improve the product you figure out how
you're measuring traction and hold
yourself accountable to that and then
you have a strategic plan for how you're
going to grow that business and these
are the these are what we feel needs to
happen next so the the next apps will
answer these questions right so what
problems are we solving for users
what about crypto uniquely enables us to
solve these problems for the first time
that we
solved before and then are these
products that are building are they
gonna be ten times better than anything
else that exists today and another thing
to keep in mind is that we may find that
we actually have to leave our comfort
zones and so you know traditionally when
you build a tech product the early
adopters were in Silicon Valley and it
radiated out from there but maybe you
know where we need to go is kind of
outside of this and go to places where
people aren't being served by today's
financial system and so that's not
normal but maybe that's the that's an
anomaly that's where we have to go to
find users and find adoption next if
you're trying to pitch your app try and
do it without using the word script or
blockchain right it's not easy right
because for for a lot of us what's
what's cool about our app is it's using
crypto blockchain but normal people
don't really care about this so so so
this is another challenge when you go
out and try and build a product for
people and you've got to keep in mind
that game-changing innovations they the
eventually rule and they'd eventually
take over but it takes time so obviously
when the when the Muraki was first
created it took I think 23 years for us
to actually embrace it and move away
from horse-drawn buggies and similarly
when the internet was first created 30
years ago right there was this whole
generation of entrepreneurs that
immediately kind of thought of all of
the new ideas that were going to come
they thought of everything that you
could possibly do with the Internet and
they built the first prototypes and they
raised a lot of money and we saw the
dot-com boom and most of them ended up
crashing because it was right idea wrong
time just too early and some of course
survived right and so some of the
biggest companies if they like Amazon
and Google started then and survived so
what we have to keep in mind is when you
look at the taps piece today there's a
lot of that too right we have a lot of
like ideas that are like amazing really
game-changing ideas but is it too early
for some of them probably and so we have
to figure out what are the ideas that
will actually get traction in today's
market and so so that's about you know
finding the right use case and finding
the right problems to solve would we
look at the taps that we have today
there are some teams that are super
strong right like we've we've even
invested in some of them at corn-based
Ventures they have strong
entrepreneurial teams they're talking to
users trying to solve real problems
trying to fix scalability issues but
when we talk to them they say that the
number one issue that they're having is
actually usability and you know so
that's I think the neck
thing that that we want to talk about is
what's the state of usability and how
can we help improve that so I think we
all agree that the the state of like
DAPs to the end using - today is pretty
awful right so just to get started you
have to first install a wallet app or a
browser extension then you have to kind
of write down this 12 what recovery
phrase which people completely it's a
new concept for most people and it's a
complete pain in the ass then you've got
to go to cryptography at exchange or
fear - crypto exchange and by crypto
then you've got a copy and paste your
wallet address over to the exchange and
send the money across then you wait for
5 or 10 minutes the money shows up you
go to you go to kick off your
transaction you see gas prices and
you're like if you're new you're like
what the hell is a gas price and you
know then you come to terms of that you
you enter the transaction wait a few
more minutes the UI updates and finally
it's like mission accomplished and
that's pretty painful and you know I
think most of us here in the room today
we have this dream that we want to we
want to like we want to replace we have
this new technology that can build an
open financial system and we want to
replace like the entrenched interest of
Wall Street right but here's the problem
the user experience today because of
FinTech the user experience on
traditional finance has become really
really good and so you know there's and
both the user experience and the
distribution so you know there's a
billion people around the world that
have visas and mastercards and they can
make electronic payments anywhere
anytime with striped developers can
start to accept crypto payments with
just a couple of lines of code in 60
seconds I can send money to my family in
India with transferwise basically
overnight for like maybe 10 bucks right
apps like venmo
ali PA WeChat you can send money like
sending a text message Google pay Apple
pay make it really easy to just check
out and so whether we like it or not we
were trying to replace a system that is
set a really high bar for usability and
that's a lesson we learnt at coinbase
pretty early right if you look at our
website five years ago you look at our
website today the the pitch remains the
same we're like if you want to buy
crypto we are the easiest place to do it
the easiest and the most trustworthy
place to do it
and that works really well for us right
there were dozens of other exchanges
back then there are dozens of exchanges
now and they're all offering the same
basic thing of bank
Krypto but we were able to differentiate
ourselves by creating a good user
experience and so that's something which
you know we're now trying to bring the
coin vs wallet and we're trying to bring
that same ethos and over the next few
months what you're gonna see is we're
gonna try and make it really easy to
fund your wallet we're gonna try and
make it easier to use recovery phrases
and manage that and actually not have to
manage it at all if you can avoid it
we're trying to break the boundaries of
the DAP browser so we don't want it have
to only open a daffy browser and use the
apps you want you to be able to use them
anywhere we want you to be able to send
to friends and not like 40 digit
addresses we want you to be able to
discovered apps more easily and finally
we want to also enable commerce we
wanted to be really frictionless to be
able to go and buy stuff on the internet
with crypto so our goal is I showed you
this chart before our goal is to
drastically reduce the friction involved
with onboarding we know that when daps
builders create apps they do a lot of
work to get people on onto their DAP and
then they have to hand their their
customer off to a wallet we take that
responsibility pretty seriously and so
we're trying to fix the experience and
if you're that builder right there's
this basically a design revolution
that's been happening over the last six
to twelve months and there's a ton of
designers that event of the space
they're sharing their knowledge and
they're really they're helping us see
whether were wallet builder or ad app
builder they helping us see this space
from just a different lens from the lens
surfer of a beginner and you know we're
all crypto nerds and we're so immersed
in the in the mark of the technicalities
but with good design we can really try
and fix that so if you don't already
follow these people you should write
they're all awesome and they're bringing
it down a fresh thought and energy into
the space last option right like
scalability last hurdle to adoptions now
let's assume that you found a good
problem to solve you're an entrepreneur
you've you've decided you found a good
problem to solve you've built a really
good app around it you've you know use
good design principles you've tested
with your users and you're now an
overnight success right you've you've
cracked it you've got like tens of
thousands of users you're like okay
we've made it with the next crypto
kiddies and then immediately this
happens right and this is we know we
know this will happen because it
happened a few months ago right how it
happened last year immediately the the
network transaction load will
Spyke fees will blow up the network will
crap will crash and your app goes to
hell right and we talked a lot of people
outside of crypto that are looking in
and like these could be game developers
from big game studios they could be fin
tech entrepreneurs that have had a
success in traditional finance that are
trying to launch something in crypto and
their feedback is always like said if
you tell me that my upper limit of users
is like fifty or sixty thousand if I
build on crypto that's not worth it for
me it's a deal breaker I can't do it and
so we I think that's a that's a really
fair point right and so how do we fix
the problem right and so I'm not going
to go into the internal like the details
of this you've you know there's enough
talks you just heard from from Amin and
Arjun but the options basically come
down to this we either go with core
scaling right and you know serenity is
expected to show up but then it's not
showing up for at least a year or two
and so that's a long while to wait
although it'll be a game changer or if
it makes sense for your app if you're
building a payments app or something
that's between two parties state
channels is a great approach right state
channels and payment channels and so
there's a few great projects there that
you can experiment with but it's very
early since you just once again you just
heard from Ameen about the hack we're
still you know this is what happens when
we're learning right like you get hacked
because you're learning we're still
putting things together so it's too
early to put any of these integer old
production and then if it makes sense
for your app there's also side chains so
there's a bunch of science projects that
you can look at a different approach and
make sense if you need visibility to
what's going on and so that's another
thing to consider so quick recap of what
we cover most important thing you can do
if you're building a DAP
solve a real problem talk to users
figure out what what is an actual pain
point and what like we've come up with
what we can build now we need to figure
out what we should build second is let's
create a great usability and great
experience around it and throw let's
start experiment with these scalability
options and I'm pretty convinced that if
we tackle all three of these we're going
to see some breakout successes in 2019
and I'm pretty stoked to see that so
next stop moon thank you
thanks questions specifically for mobile
probably many people are aware that you
had some trouble with Apple because they
won through 30% cut and the App Store
and this model has worked really well
until a crypto hit so just wondering if
you had some thoughts on how you think
to avoid issues where Apple wants a cut
or maybe Google in the future Amazon or
whoever because it is a payment in their
ecosystem at least from their
perspective right yeah I think you know
it's it's a little bit early days I
think when before we begin to actually
start to compete with these products
with these like giants and so it's I
think we're just gonna see how that
plays out I think the equation will
develop over time and relationships will
develop over time I honestly don't have
an easy answer to how you know how the
community will navigate it and how the
incumbents will navigate it it's just
not clear at this point Thanks and then
not totally related but still I think
also UX what do you think about gas-free
layers because then you're 12 steps
there's still this gasps what the
is gas and there's this new interesting
concept that somebody else could pay gas
for the user so that they at least
initially don't have to deal with it do
you have any thoughts on that yeah
absolutely we love the idea of gas three
layers of meta transactions frankly
anything that reduces the the user
burden and you know makes these
transactions just disappear into the
background it's a little bit early I
think there's still they're basically
being prototype as we speak right and so
that's definitely something we're also
looking at you know how to engage with
it how to how to start deploy those but
yeah it's a little bit early I was
curious about you were also building a
in web widget as well right what's the
background on that right now
sure so so we we had announced doing
that and then we we had a bit of a
rethink and we were like well what is if
we actually want daps to be available
everywhere do we just try and be on one
more platform which is in web browsers
or do we try and be on every platform so
we're actively trying to figure out how
to like what our place should be for web
and hopefully we should have some
announcements in the next month or two
um also uh for gas have you thought
about maybe changing the name of gas fee
to just fee because it seems like from
the last talk that people don't really
care about in gas fees but if we just
change the language there's fees with
that help you know they I think it's an
open question and something worth
testing I think one of the issues is
that when you're talking to new user
when you tell them there's a fee they
usually assume that you're taking the
fee
we're not taking the feet right like
wallets don't take the fee and so I
think if you if you make it clear that
it's a gas fee and you try the concept
back to what's going on on the
blockchain and the miners and that's
something we've tried to use helpful
language inside the app but I think
there's there's the danger that if you
just say the word fee that people are
gonna assume that it's our fee and be
like oh you're charging too much well
we're not right so yeah oh so people is
for example now gone free for peeps is
that a problem because you kind of don't
want users to suddenly go back into that
mindset of well look someone else is
dealing with paying for all of this
stuff isn't it and we're sacrificing
that obviously for convenience is that
the wrong sacrifice to make you want
users to actually have a sense of
control over what they're doing and
remind them in a kind of educated way
it's you who's in control yeah that's
that's a great question I don't know if
necessarily making people pay money is
the best way to illustrate that they're
in control but I get your point about
the incentive system if someone else is
paying for you and if something you know
this if if the product is free then you
are the product right and so there's a
danger of that I think there's gonna be
three or four different kinds of like
business models that appear over crypto
right you could see that one state
channels appear and payment channels
appear and are in production and and you
know reliable that you won't have the
problem of fees anymore as much and so
maybe that problem goes away in in the
next six months you mentioned a couple
of times the reasons for success for
apps to get mass adoption what I'm
wondering is do you think that these
same reasons apply automatically to
adapts or where could there be
differences we
- in-depth and apps in in very strategic
in you know - in very strategic terms to
become successful so I think you know
dab synapse from a user perspective of
this dad should be the same thing that
they don't care about whether it's based
on a decentralized technology but it's
really about can we leverage the fact
that we have a programmable value and
that it has without borders without
permissions can we create a really
powerful product there where you know
traditional financial applications they
have to kyc you you have to be in a
certain geography you have to have
permission to operate on their product
crypto changes all of that
so can you create programs that that
make make use of that right I think
that's that's where you can actually
create a product where even the user
doesn't know the using crypto it's
suddenly much more powerful because it's
available to more people and because
it's more efficient with value so how
much that we have left maybe does it say
hey oh we have a minute okay very last
question first thank you so much for
emphasizing the need for use cases we
need to actually have things that people
need web versus native and enterprise
what are what is your take on the
priorities in those spaces sure so I'll
comment on web versus native and not the
enterprise because frankly I haven't
paid any attention there whereas web
versus native I've spent a lot of time
thinking about that you know we started
off as a native the incumbent was mayor
of mass we started off as a as a native
product I think I reflect back on what's
happened with the internet today which
is that half the activity on the
internet for the long tail of activity
is in web but for any product that is
successful they eventually want to build
their own native experience that
controls the experience and because they
native just is a richer format and a
more powerful format for that and so
once again we're actively trying to
think about how can at the same time the
problem with going completely native in
creating native experiences in crypto is
that if you created a wallet in each
native experience you would be
completely users will be completely
fragmented where the identity would be
fragmented across native different
native apps the assets would be
fragmented across definitive apps it
would actually
beat the value of crypto and if you know
you actually had a different wallet in
all of these different native apps and
so we've actively been grappling with we
already serve you know adapts are all on
the web today
we want to serve native clients we want
to be a wallet for native products and
so we're coming up with the strategy and
a product offering for that you should
see that in the next couple of months
awesome give it up one more time for
sale thank you
[Applause]
you