Why User Onboarding is the New Moats for dApps

Users must acquire and manage a volatile native token just to transact, creating a chicken-and-egg problem for new chains. This kills onboarding.

• ~$5-50 is the hidden mental cost of a first transaction.
• Zero new users understand gas estimation or layer-2 bridging.
• Result: 99% drop-off before the first meaningful interaction.

Let applications pay for user gas in stablecoins or fiat, then batch and subsidize costs. This is the PayPal 'Seller Pays' model for Web3.

• ERC-4337 Account Abstraction enables native sponsorship.
• Biconomy & Pimlico provide SDKs for ~$0.01 subsidized txs.
• Result: Users experience Web3 as a serverless SaaS product.

A user on Arbitrum cannot interact with a Solana NFT or a Base DeFi pool without manual bridging, network switching, and asset wrapping.

• Average user has 2.3+ wallets and $50+ in stranded liquidity.
• Fragmented liquidity reduces capital efficiency and composability.
• Result: Apps are siloed to their native chain, capping TAM.

Shift from "connect wallet, sign tx" to declarative intent. Let infra handle the messy cross-chain execution.

• UniswapX & CowSwap already route orders across all AMMs.
• Across & Socket use intents for ~30s canonical bridge UX.
• Result: Users see one balance, one interface. The app becomes the universal liquidity aggregator.

For 99% of users, self-custody of a seed phrase is a terrifying, irreversible liability. Lost keys mean permanent loss, with $10B+ in Bitcoin already inaccessible.

• Zero mainstream financial products work this way.
• Recovery is a social or legal process, not a cryptographic one.
• Result: Institutional and retail adoption hits a hard ceiling.

Decouple key management from user experience using Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and flexible recovery logic.

• Privy & Web3Auth offer email/social login with non-custodial MPC.
• Safe{Wallet} enables 2FA & time-locked recovery via trusted contacts.
• Result: Security becomes a customizable feature, not a binary cliff edge.

The Problem: Self-custody is a UX dead-end for mainstream users. The Solution: SDKs for embedded, non-custodial wallets using social logins and MPC.

• Onboards users in <30 seconds with familiar Web2 flows.
• ~90% reduction in drop-off compared to traditional wallet setup.
• Seamlessly bridges to EOAs, enabling progressive decentralization.

The Problem: Users are fragmented across chains and wallets, making engagement impossible. The Solution: Unified user profiles that aggregate activity across EVM, Solana, and Starknet.

• Single user profile across 10+ chains and any wallet.
• Enables cross-chain loyalty programs and personalized onboarding.
• Provides dApps with a holistic view of user capital and behavior.

The Problem: Needing ETH for gas before doing anything is a non-starter. The Solution: ERC-4337 smart wallets with sponsored transactions and instant on-ramp.

• Zero-balance onboarding: users pay with card, app covers initial gas.
• ~2M+ wallets created, demonstrating product-market fit.
• Turns the largest CEX into the most powerful dApp acquisition engine.

The Problem: Seed phrases are a massive point of failure and friction. The Solution: Non-custodial wallet infrastructure with configurable social recovery and policy engines.

• Recover accounts via trusted contacts or hardware authenticators.
• Granular security policies (spend limits, transaction co-signing).
• Makes self-custody as user-friendly as a bank app, but more secure.

The Problem: Users hate paying gas. Period. The Solution: ERC-4337 paymaster infrastructure that lets dApps sponsor gas or users pay in any token.

• Gas sponsorship drives user acquisition; ERC-20 gas enables sticky ecosystems.
• Sub-second gas policy validation for seamless UX.
• Critical infrastructure for the account abstraction stack, alongside Stackup and Alchemy.

The Problem: No single solution wins; the moat is integrated, frictionless flow. The Solution: The winning dApp stack combines these primitives into an invisible layer.

• Privy/Dynamic for identity & onboarding.
• Coinbase/Capsule for wallet creation & security.
• Biconomy/Pimlico for gas abstraction.
• This stack creates ~90% lower user friction, locking in the next billion users.

Users won't pay for gas. Period. The winning dApp stack will make transaction fees invisible, either through sponsored transactions or native account abstraction (AA).

• Key Benefit 1: Enable true one-click interactions, removing the #1 UX failure point.
• Key Benefit 2: Capture users from non-custodial wallets like Coinbase Wallet and Safe{Wallet} by paying for their first 100 transactions.

Stop making users think like traders. Let them declare a desired outcome (e.g., "swap X for Y at best price") and let a solver network handle the complexity.

• Key Benefit 1: Unlocks cross-chain liquidity seamlessly via projects like UniswapX, CowSwap, and Across.
• Key Benefit 2: Drastically reduces failed transactions and MEV extraction, improving net outcomes.

KYC and compliance are inevitable for mass adoption. The moat is in making it painless and portable. Build with privacy-preserving proofs (e.g., zk-proofs).

• Key Benefit 1: One-time verification unlocks compliant DeFi, gaming, and social apps across ecosystems.
• Key Benefit 2: Creates a defensible data layer; the protocol that verifies users owns the relationship.

Forget seed phrases. The dominant onboarding flow will be email/social login with non-custodial, embedded wallets (e.g., Privy, Dynamic, Magic).

• Key Benefit 1: Reduces time-to-first-transaction from 30 minutes to 30 seconds.
• Key Benefit 2: Developers own the full user journey, increasing retention and LTV.

Users don't care about chains. Your dApp must present a single, unified interface. This requires robust abstraction layers like LayerZero, Axelar, and Wormhole.

• Key Benefit 1: Eliminates the need for users to manually bridge assets or switch networks.
• Key Benefit 2: Future-proofs your application; liquidity and users are no longer chain-locked.

Volatile gas fees kill product predictability. Winning dApps will either operate on low-fee L2s (Base, Arbitrum, zkSync) or implement gasless meta-transactions.

• Key Benefit 1: Enables subscription models and microtransactions previously impossible on Ethereum L1.
• Key Benefit 2: Provides a stable cost basis for unit economics and growth forecasting.