Opinion: The next decade of the crypto industry may look more like Revolut than MetaMask.

BlockBeats news, September 14 — British tech media outlet The Fintech Times published an article stating that as stablecoin demand and regulatory frameworks gradually mature, the real bottleneck in the crypto industry may have shifted from underlying infrastructure to user experience. Declan Hannon, CEO of Aurora Labs and former Global Head of Partnerships at Revolut, wrote that crypto applications still require users to understand complex concepts such as networks, gas fees, cross-chain bridges, wrapped assets, and confirmation times, while traditional fintech has long since hidden this infrastructure in the background.

The supply of fiat-backed stablecoins surpassed $273 billion in March 2026, and adjusted stablecoin transfer volume grew 91% in 2025 to $10.9 trillion, demonstrating sustained growth in market demand for low-cost, fast dollar payments. Meanwhile, the EU's MiCA has been fully implemented, and the U.S. GENIUS Act has entered the rulemaking stage, with the regulatory environment gradually maturing.

Hannon believes that future crypto applications should use architectures such as "Intents" to delegate complex processes like routing, liquidity acquisition, cross-chain execution, and settlement to background networks, requiring users only to express their final objective. For example, a user would simply send USDT or USDC to a fixed address, and the system would automatically complete cross-chain and fund routing without the user needing to select a network themselves.

For the crypto industry to achieve mass adoption, the key is not to continue adding underlying chains or merely increasing throughput, but to make it unnecessary for users to understand the underlying mechanisms of blockchain. "The best crypto application may be one where mainstream users don't even realize they are using crypto technology."