Bitcoin doesn’t struggle to be adopted because it lacks benefits.

It struggles because the experience people are used to is different from the experience most Bitcoin products provide.

When I think about changing a user experience, I don’t think about adding features. I think about changing how someone feels while moving through a process. And the challenge of change, when it comes to the success of a product, is shaped almost entirely by familiarity.

Change fails when familiarity breaks

People don’t resist change because it’s bad. They resist it because the transition feels risky.

If someone understands and is okay with their current experience, there’s a simple question they’re asking: why risk this? Why enter a period—possibly long—where things might feel confusing or uncomfortable, even if the end result could be better?

In my view, fear of loss almost always dominates potential gain.

Consider a coin flip. Heads, you gain one million dollars. Tails, nothing happens. Most people would take that bet—there’s no downside.

Now change the rules. Heads, you gain one million. Tails, you lose one million. The upside hasn’t changed, but far fewer people would participate. The moment loss enters the picture, behavior shifts completely.

That’s what unfamiliar experiences feel like. With familiar experiences, losses are known and bounded. With unfamiliar ones, they feel open-ended. People imagine worst-case scenarios. The uncertainty in the experience itself becomes the risk.

Familiarity is the hidden adoption lever

Familiarity isn’t comfort. It’s the alignment between experience and expectation.

When an experience matches what a user already knows, they can estimate risk, assess benefit, and feel confident in their choices. When it doesn’t, even a well-designed system creates discomfort.

From what I’ve seen, Bitcoin products are often consistent within the context of Bitcoin, but unfamiliar to newcomers. Custody, payment flows, error handling, and responsibility behave differently than in traditional finance. That difference makes the experience feel foreign, uncertain, and risky; even when it’s objectively sound.

Education can’t substitute for familiarity

A common belief is that users just need to “learn more.”

But people don’t use banks because they understand banking mechanics. They use them because the experience matches the mental models they’ve built over the years.

I don’t believe any product wins by demanding understanding upfront. Nobody studies networking protocols before using the internet or hardware architecture before buying a phone. People adopt new tools when the cost of switching—cognitive, emotional, or practical—is low, and the benefit is clear.

Familiarity beats ideology

At some point, I think builders have to ask themselves: who am I actually building for? Is it for me, my friends, or people who already think like I do?

If the goal is to onboard the world to Bitcoin, we can’t keep designing only for the people already inside the system.

It’s natural to do so. Builders design around their own values and tolerances. But when ideology leaks into UX, mass adoption suffers.

People use products for the experience they provide, not for an understanding of why they’re better. When building on Bitcoin, I don’t think our job is to convince users that Bitcoin is the solution. Our job is to create a better, more meaningful experience, one that users can't say no to.

Familiarity is the path forward

I don’t think Bitcoin will be adopted because people understand it’s better money.

I think it will be adopted when using it feels familiar enough that the risk of change disappears.

That doesn’t require everyone to understand Bitcoin. It requires products to align with experiences users already know.

Mass adoption comes from matching expectations, not teaching new ones.

If we want Bitcoin to scale, we don’t need more explanations. We need experiences that feel familiar from the very first interaction.

Best,

Blitz Team