The Problem
Custody Risk
Most users continue to rely on centralized platforms for convenience, at the cost of relinquishing control over their assets. This introduces counterparty risk, including fund freezes, mismanagement, and insolvency events.
Even when self-custodial alternatives are available, users often lack sufficient safeguards or clarity to operate them safely..
Example: Historical failures of centralized platforms have demonstrated that when custody is delegated to third parties, users ultimately bear the full impact of operational failures and insolvency.
High Fees, Network Congestion, and Execution Failure
On many widely used blockchain networks, transaction costs and execution reliability remain unpredictable. During periods of high demand, basic operations such as swaps or transfers may become prohibitively expensive, delayed, or fail entirely due to network congestion.
Example: In periods of peak activity on general-purpose blockchains, transaction fees can spike dramatically, causing swaps to revert or transfers to become economically infeasible for everyday users.
Fragmented Liquidity
Decentralized liquidity is commonly spread across multiple protocols and interfaces. Users are required to navigate separate platforms for trading, liquidity provision, lending, and portfolio tracking, each with different data models and security assumptions.
Example: A user may be forced to swap assets on one platform, provide liquidity on another, and track positions through a third-party dashboard, increasing operational complexity and reducing capital efficiency.
Inefficient Global Payments
Despite the global nature of blockchain networks, cross-border value transfer remains inefficient for many users. High fees, slow settlement, and fragmented fiat on-ramps limit practical usage for international payments and remittances.
Example: While stable-value assets such as USD- and EUR-denominated tokens exist, accessing and transferring them across borders often requires multiple intermediaries, resulting in delays and additional costs.
Complex User Workflows
Decentralized finance systems frequently assume a high level of technical knowledge. Concepts such as gas fees, transaction signing, liquidity pools, and smart contract interactions create friction for non-technical users and discourage adoption.
Example: Users are often required to approve opaque transactions or manage multiple parameters without fully understanding the associated risks, leading to hesitation or costly mistakes.
Ecosystem Fragmentation
Interoperability between blockchains remains limited, and interacting across ecosystems introduces additional complexity and cost. At the same time, many platforms lack developer-friendly tooling, consistent interfaces, or cohesive environments for building and deploying applications.
Example: Developers may need to maintain separate integrations, user interfaces, and infrastructure for each network, reinforcing fragmentation across the ecosystem.
Wallet-Centric Limitations
Most wallets function primarily as transaction signers rather than comprehensive financial interfaces. Advanced functionality is delegated to external platforms, resulting in restricted user interfaces, limited transparency, and fragmented workflows.
Within specific ecosystems, including Stellar, users often lack a unified environment to manage assets, access decentralized applications, and interact with financial protocols, while developers face fragmented tooling and inconsistent integration paths.
Example: Portfolio visibility, transaction history, and protocol interactions are commonly spread across multiple applications, making it difficult for users to maintain a coherent view of their financial activity.
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