Crypto will revolutionize DTC

Many will likely roll your eyes at this, but crypto is 100% GOING TO HAPPEN.

Not only is it going to happen, but it will also usher in THE GOLDEN AGE OF DTC.

Oh really, you say?

Look, for the dissenters out there, I totally get it. I was the same as you until about 6 months ago. If you haven’t been following crypto lately, I’d like for you to keep an open mind and see if I can convince you why it's different this time.

If you’re like most, the last time you paid any attention to crypto was five years ago during Covid. We had laser eyes, diamond hands, Bored Apes, SBF and “wen moon?”. Total cringefest. It was a straight-up casino with no ground rules and one rug pull after the next.

Now, it’s not that those things aren’t still happening, they can and they do in crypto today. But that’s increasingly becoming a sideshow. What’s coming into focus are legitimate projects with legitimate use cases.

Crypto Goes Mainstream

If you compare crypto’s arc to the adoption curves of the internet and AI, you might be surprised to know it’s way ahead of schedule. Consider that Satoshi’s whitepaper is just over 16 years old. Just? That seems like a lifetime ago. Yet, we’re almost 5 decades into the foundational event of the internet and almost 7 decades into the founding of AI. So don’t be too fast to discount the potential impact of crypto just because its reputation to date has been soiled by the degenerates among us.

There’s going to be a huge narrative shift about crypto, and a year from now, your opinion on the technology is going to be drastically different. Here’s why:

Regulatory Certainty

Do you know what was also subject to endless rug pulls before regulators put a framework around it? The stock market. 

None other than former president, General Ulysses S Grant, was ponzied in a stock scam by his own business partner! In 1929, only around 1.5 to 3 million Americans owned stocks (roughly 2%–3% of the population). Today, that figure is almost 60% of the US population. Why the massive shift in adoption rate? The Security Act of 1933 gave consumers the protections they needed to trust stocks while the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 gave brokers the framework they needed to build an entire industry to properly market stocks to consumers.

Today, that’s exactly what’s happening for Crypto with two new regulatory acts: The bipartisan GENIUS act to legitimize stablecoins (just enacted into law as of this writing) and the CLARITY act to provide a regulatory framework for digital assets. We won’t get into the weeds about how these two acts provide consumer protections and regulatory certainty for builders, but this a16z’s recap is an excellent primer.

With the passing of the GENIUS act, the CLARITY act should be on the glide path to approval as well. The CLARITY act will be a monumental event for crypto projects because it classifies digital tokens that are reasonably decentralized as commodities and not securities. Ironically, it was the Security Act of 1933 that caused all of the regulatory uncertainty around crypto. For builders, this removes all of the doubt around regulatory compliance that left a vacuum in crypto filled by the unscrupulous. Those that were wary of building in the space will now come rushing back in with the passage of CLARITY. 

Look Ma, Real Use Cases!

Stablecoins were already having a moment and the GENIUS act supercharges things by turning them into “digital dollars”. With every US denominated stablecoin now tethered to a US dollar, this new legislation will go a long way towards cementing the supremacy of the dollar in the crypto age. 

2025 stablecoin activity to date

Stablecoins are gaining legitimacy because they behave like money people already use (dollars) while moving like the internet: fast, programmable, and globally accessible. As we’ll discuss, stablecoins will become core to the DTC industry’s payment rails.

I’m most excited though about what’s currently happening on a Layer 2 blockchain built on Ethereum called Base. Developed by Coinbase (just added to the S&P 500 btw), Base has attracted builders that have launched real projects that are adding real value. The projects that have most captivated me are DeFi-focused and leverage autonomous trading AI agents (Giza and Mamo to name a few). You can see the future of the hedge fund industry being built as we speak and institutional interest won’t be far off. It’s these projects that inspired me to start thinking about how an AI recommendation engine with a crypto backbone could be leveraged for DTC. 

So the backend technology is real and incredibly exciting but what about the user interface? That too is rapidly taking shape on Base. Coinbase just released a total overhaul to what was previously called Coinbase Wallet. Now called Base app, it brings together social, mini-apps, chat, payments, and trading. This isn’t web 2.0 tech either. All the functionality in the app is pure crypto tech, with every action being recorded on the blockchain at blazing speeds. A decentralized social network is being built that combines messaging, apps and payments? Just the kind of tech advance we need to disrupt Meta, which hasn’t added a new social feature on note in YEARS.

From the Base app announcement:

We believe the next chapter of the internet won’t come from big platforms. It’ll come from creators. That’s why we rebuilt the Base app from the ground up, not just as a wallet, but as a new kind of open social network. One where you own what you post. Where your work earns. Where your feed is yours. Now, anyone can post, trade, chat, and get rewarded.

MUSIC. TO. MY. EARS. If you’re asking how Commerce could fit into the equation, you’re one step ahead! We’ll explore that next!