The following article is an op-ed by Tyler Adams, CEO & Co-Founder at COZ.

For the last two years, crypto developers and venture capital have been hyper-focused on supporting infrastructure projects to the detriment of consumer-facing applications. If you look around this industry, you will see a plethora of tools for developers to integrate privacy features, decentralize information, and scale platforms, but a lack of applications where these tools can be used. We’re not beating the allegations that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Crypto and the underlying blockchain technology have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact online and in the real world. In particular, blockchain as an authentication tool could address a growing crisis in the market for consumer goods, providing an immutable source of truth to verify information.

More folks in the space just need this type of integration with the physical world, what I would call Non-Fungible Items – NFIs. 

Cheer Up, the Crypto Winter Is Over

The collapse of the NFT market and the failure of the metaverse to take off, combined with the onset of the crypto winter, caused many developers to retreat from consumer-facing applications and instead focus on improving decentralized infrastructure.

Keep in mind, in this same year media coverage of the FTX bankruptcy severely damaged the reputation of the industry. It didn’t feel like a good time to onboard mainstream users. Instead, developers put their heads down and focused on tackling issues like scalability, user experience, and security. 

Now we have seen improvements on all these fronts. Zero Knowledge (ZK) rollups have improved speed and efficiency on layer 1 protocols, account abstraction has enabled a web2-like user experience, and there was a