DLATITUDE252 Blockworks reports that attendees at this week’s Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) in Brussels expressed a rising belief that the development of consumer apps has been overshadowed by the concentration on crypto infrastructure. Even while Ethereum helped make smart contracts and NFTs more widely known, many people thought that there weren’t enough consumer apps present at the event. There is a general agreement, according to the Milk Road newsletter’s social lead, that the sector requires more practical apps rather than more infrastructure. The director of 2077 Collective, Emmanuel Awosika, expressed his happiness that people are increasingly realizing how important consumer apps are. At the conference, interoperability and cross-chain solutions were prioritized over new user apps, according to Offchain Labs’ A.J. Warner. Although there are currently few interesting consumer apps, it is clear that there is a need for them.
Electric Capital general partner Maria Shen released a market map categorizing over 1,500 crypto projects, with more than one-third labeled as apps. However, some argue that the industry should first master its original use case of payments before moving on to more complex applications. Mustafa Al-Bassam, CEO of Celestia Labs, emphasized this point. Despite the current gap, there are crypto apps with real users, such as Telegram games on the TON blockchain and Solana blinks that allow users to play Pokemon onchain within their X feed.
In related news, Story Protocol announced the launch of the world’s first intellectual property blockchain, allowing creators to upload and monetize their intellectual property. Co-founder S.Y. Lee emphasized that the protocol aims to provide a clear use case, unlike many other defi chains and apps. Additionally, Farcaster’s daily active users reached an all-time high, and blockchain analytics firm Elliptic linked
