Stop Trying to Add Crypto to Everything

I think about the Long Island Iced Tea Corp a lot. If you’re not already familiar with the story, this is a cautionary tale about putting cryptocurrency where it doesn’t belong.

In December 2017, the Long Island Tea Corp in Hicksville (a real place), New York, changed its name to Long Blockchain Corp. Its stock surged as much as 500% in pre-market trading based solely on the addition of this revolutionary technology buzzword.

They weren’t doing anything with blockchain technology other than adding it to their name. Shockingly, the company then went bust due to allegations of fraud and an SEC investigation — no big surprise.

Seven years later, we’re making the same mistake. Apparently, not enough people are aware of the fate of the Long Island Iced Tea company because they continue to use and place the term and the technology of blockchain and crypto where it doesn’t belong.

Pivoting Out of Frustration

This story from 2017 really hit home when I was talking with someone at an incubator recently. He was so frustrated helping builders chase grants to build new ghostchains that he pivoted. He was now working with Web2 companies and seeing how they can integrate Web3 into their offerings. Walking into a Web2 company and asking, “How can we add crypto?” misses the entire point. A 180 to the exit sign often quickly follows.

All builders need to ask themselves: would your product still matter if the word “crypto” vanished from your pitch? If the answer is “no,” you don’t have a product. You have a dependency on narrative. You’re not solving a problem. You’re looking for a problem that fits your solution. Or that fits your marketing hype.

Real technology doesn’t get added. It gets woven in because it makes something faster, cheaper, better — more transparent or more trustworthy. If you have to ask where it fits, it probably doesn’t.

Shoehorning for the Sake of It

This problem isn’t just in the world of crypto. It’s everywhere. Right now, we’re seeing cutting-edge technology shoehorned into products and services where it doesn’t belong. For every Web3 decentralized dating app, there is an AI-enhanced toothbrush (that one is real). Want “token go up,” then change URL from .com to .ai. Trust me, it works.

This tells us that the builder economy is broken. It’s not a builder economy; it is a framers’ market. There’s too much grant money and too little accountability. It’s often easier to raise capital for buzzwords than to ship something real.

Builders are caught in an endless loop of hackathons, retroactive funding rounds, and vaporware launches that never surpass testnet. Can’t blame anyone for taking free money and doing little work for it. It’s not their fault, it is our industry’s.

A Huge Credibility Issue

Investors, often called speculators, and so-called innovators are to blame here. Everyone wants to unleash the killer Web3 app, but they are focusing on the Web3 aspect rather than the application. There’s more energy going into adding crypto than actually solving anything. Why build a product when you can just make a pitch deck?

This leads us to Web3’s huge credibility problem. “Pointless” is paid for, and pointless gets made. When that pointlessness fails to solve any problems, then it is totally reasonable for the public and the media to call it what it is… nonsense. Some people simply want to buy Long Island Iced Tea without getting involved in the blockchain revolution.

Here’s a better way to think about it. Blockchain is fabric, not a suit. The fabric is there, raw and versatile, but the team weaves it together into something that actually fits. A bespoke suit doesn’t announce itself. It just works. You don’t notice the stitching. You see how it moves. That’s what good infrastructure does. It disappears.

A Banal and Shallow Approach

Compare that with the lazy integrations we see today: clunky wallets, forced token mechanics, and user experiences that scream “we added blockchain because we could.” Genuine craftsmanship is invisible. Yet, we expect this banal and shallow approach to “change the world” and onboard the next “billion users”. Come on, guys, get real.

Blockchain doesn’t need more evangelists. It needs tailors. People who know how to cut, stitch, and fit technology around real human problems. People who care more about the fit of the suit than the appearance.

The incubator guy was halfway there. He saw the grant trap and wanted out. But swapping one shortcut for another won’t fix the culture. Long Island Iced Tea taught us that lesson seven years ago. So, what is the best way to integrate Web3?

Stop trying so hard to add it. And make a suit that fits perfectly.

Disclaimer: The opinions in this article are the writer’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Cryptonews.com. This article is meant to provide a broad perspective on its topic and should not be taken as professional advice.

The post Stop Trying to Add Crypto to Everything appeared first on Cryptonews.