Web2 and Web3 are similar technologies, but developers approach challenges differently. Web2 focuses on reading and writing content, whereas Web3 focuses on creating content. The latter utilizes blockchain technology to facilitate user information exchange and enhance security.
Around 20,000 smart contract developers work full-time in DeFi and Web3, but it’s a small number of the 27 million developers globally. At the same time, the number of Unique Active Wallets interacting with blockchain applications reached an average of two million per day. Still, compared to Web2 app Instagram’s 500 million daily active users and 4.2 billion likes per day – blockchain apps fight to onboard users.
Ethereum and its Solidity programming language have long been the go-to choice for DeFi developers building financial services on the blockchain. However, DeFi on Ethereum has seen over $285m in hacks; the rewards could be more fairly shared, and Ethereum continues to be congested and expensive.
These issues cause developers to hurry to alternatives like NEAR, Avalanche, and Solana to offer financial services. But unfortunately, they also spend countless hours ensuring their decentralized application is secure, only to wake up and realize bad actors drained millions of dollars of users’ funds.
At the same time, business leaders search the earth for people with the skills needed to build smart contracts and do whatever it takes to find users prepared to put up with the inferior user experiences presented by DeFi apps. Only to be further capped by network congestion and fees.
As we rapidly enter the Web3 era, where value and data quickly move across decentralized platforms with distributed ownership and authority, entrepreneurs and developers need the tools to craft ideas and build quickly, easily, and safely. Moreover, if DeFi is to ever scale beyond crypto natives, developers in Web3 need standardized tools to build applications with user experience at the core.
The argument for better DeFi
Consumer saving and spending arguably power the world. As a result, we, the little guys, control the most critical parts of the global economy and financial system. The internet was all about information, but DeFi is about money – and in a world where cash is power, DeFi flips the model on its head.
Most people these days spend and save using a bank, limited by regulatory compliance and further legacy issues. Web3 gives rise to a new way of doing things. New financial products built using smart contracts allow consumers to move between providers in seconds, all from the comfort of a mobile device.
DeFi also creates more competition for building financial products by lowering the barrier to entry, sharing a user base between applications, and letting money move instantly and seamlessly between opportunities.
The argument is that decentralized financial programs like Aave, Uniswap, and MakerDAO can directly control assets and allow financial products to operate 24/7, all year round, with 100% uptime and no staff, which will be appealing to end-users if presented in the right way.
Sticky points
Arguably the end-user experience of most decentralized apps leaves much to be desired. Blockchain wallets and asset custody, alongside a complex web of transactions and signatures, await beginners, while hardened veterans navigate the space with caution, often making mistakes.
At the same time, according to DeFi Lama’s hack rankings, more than $700m was siphoned out of the crypto space in malicious attacks from the start of October 2022 to date. So if DeFi is to succeed, users must be able to trust and use the services offered in an intuitive, familiar, almost Web2 way.
For that to happen, blockchain platforms must provide more incentives for Web2 developers and pioneers to leave a familiar world and embrace Web3. These incentives don’t need to be financial but provide builders with the tools to deliver stunning products.
Executives at tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon will likely lead the way, leaving high-profile jobs at market-leading brands to take positions in the promising blockchain space.
Polygon and Circle have hired top talent from tech firms, enticing them with the angle of working on the next big thing in Web3. Further Silicon Valley talent heading for crypto includes Sherice Torres, the former Chief Marketing Officer of Facebook’s crypto and payments team, Novi. At the same time, Amazon Cloud executive Pravjit Tiwana joined Gemini as its Chief Technical Officer.
Add to this a series of mass layoffs in the tech sector, including Twitter, Amazon, and Meta’s dismissal of thousands of workers amidst the highest rates of global inflation seen for decades. This creates an incredible opportunity for businesses that previously wanted to expand their tech and payment capabilities but couldn’t because of the shortage of talent available.
As a result, blockchain firms can now compete with recruiters from Silicon Valley for the brightest minds with a track record of taking products to market. Arguably, there has never been a better time to think about leaping into Web3 and DeFi development as more powerful tools, and no code solutions come online for those with a solid programming foundation.
Playing around proves useful
Gaming, and more importantly, the Unity game engine, led the way regarding the standardization of tools needed to build games. It gave game developers rendering and basic physics engines from which to build—altogether simplifying the process, lowering the barrier to entry, and making way for innovation and healthy competition.
As a result, games got more complex while libraries of reusable art and in-game items became available for other developers to use creatively. As a result, developers, entrepreneurs, and users rushed in. With this straightforward invention of an engine and powerful tools, gaming grew bigger than music, TV, and film combined to become a billion-dollar industry.
Ethereum has by far the most developers in the space, and according to DappRadar, more than 3500 dapps currently run from its smart contracts. The network is also the layer for many cryptocurrencies and blue-chip NFTs. However, as discussed earlier, Ethereum is no longer the sole player in smart contracts and Web3 development.
Moreover, Ethereum doesn’t offer developers plug-and-play solutions to build dapps. Instead, developers tend to fork existing applications, as was the case for Sushiswap, a fork of Uniswap. In this scenario, developers often take the bad UX from the forked application, choosing not to improve it.
Ethereum is simply an industry-standard choice. However, as MySpace fell from its once high perch, and as competition increases and developers focus on end-users, other networks deliver solutions that entice Web2 builders to leap.
There are solutions
One blockchain stack applying the plug-and-play model outlined by Unity to decentralized finance and Web3 is Radix. The company, with its roots in the United Kingdom, has been working to deliver seamless DeFi for a decade and showcased its Radix Engine, which promises to be the Unity engine of DeFi, at an event called RadFi, where CEO Piers Ridyard laid bare the inefficiencies of DeFi.
“Right now, crypto, DeFi, and Web3 are just one big glorified tech demo. For everyday people to use it, we’ve got to improve it radically.” Piers Ridyard, CEO of Radix
At the virtual Keynote event, CEO Piers Ridyard also said what differentiates Radix is the fundamental shift in how the platform is built. The network features the world’s first programmable DeFi engine that takes concepts such as tokens and vaults and makes them native and fully interoperable. In addition, there’s a catalog of tools and pre-made solutions where Web2 developers can find helpful building blocks.
The Radix engine promises to remove all the complex, low-level work that Web3 and DeFi developers spend 80% of their time on other platforms. Creating a programming language specifically for Web3 and DeFi called Scrypto, Radix hopes to tempt millions of Web2 developers into Web3. But, more importantly, provide them with a soft landing and the ability to build scalable DeFi products.
Radix also claims they studied how bad actors were hacking applications built on public networks like Ethereum. For example, events such as reentrancy attacks, spend approval attacks, or signature manipulation attacks have cost the Ethereum ecosystem millions. The Radix Engine makes many of these attacks impossible, prioritizing asset security as a primary network operation, not an afterthought.
Another Layer-1 blockchain trying to simplify the developer building process is Fuse Network, with its Charge product and Fuse Cash wallet. Charge takes a drag-and-drop approach to DeFi and payment infrastructure, partnering with ecosystem allies and matching them to build on their no-code platform.
With a close focus on everyday payments and DeFi, Fuse and Radix are just a few of many teams out there trying to entice Web2 developers to embrace crypto and DeFi by helping them provide an experience similar to that of Web2 without investing years of study.
Focus where it matters
User experience in DeFi and decentralized apps has arguably suffered as brilliant people worked on the wrong problems. Successful Web3 developers may focus on pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology and the inner workings of finance and tokenomics. Still, it comes at the expense of genuinely usable applications that the mainstream user could adopt and feel safe using.
Solutions like the Radix Engine could profoundly affect the industry and attract Web2 developers to build mobile-first, user-friendly applications delivering DeFi and crypto solutions. In addition, Web2 developers bring a wealth of user onboarding and knowledge that could hold the key to the mass adoption of decentralized applications.
With tools becoming available Web2 developers can tap into battle-hardened code, spend less time on day-to-day app maintenance and security, and allocate resources to building beautiful applications that work, gain traction, and deliver a smooth user experience. In addition, web2 developers can join and complement the work already done by leading blockchain teams while not having to risk learning complex new programming languages.
Another thing that attracts Web2 developer talent from big tech companies to Web3 is money. According to data from Blind, a social network for professionals, Coinbase offers as much as $900,000 a year for software engineers. At the same time, the average salary for Web3 developers ranges between $75,000 and $200,000.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice
