Over the past year Helium has been the single most effective way to evangelize crypto to my friends.

The reason?

Financial use cases are hard to grasp and uninteresting to people without financial backgrounds.

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Bitcoin is hard to explain because reality is most people don’t even understand the purpose of gold outside it’s use in jewelry and electronics.

In many ways Bitcoin just seems like a pet rock.

DeFi while somewhat easier to explain because people use financial services, is still hard.

The second you start talking about market making, derivatives, synthetic assets, etc. you lose people.

It’s all very abstract.

But a community owned wireless network (Helium)?

Surprisingly much easier to understand.

Everyone can imagine what that is because it’s literally a physical network.

Plus when the framing is about earning HNT through running infrastructure for a community owned wireless network vs investing, it takes people’s guard down.

Not everyone has the risk tolerance for token investments.

But many people are interested in additional income sources.

The active participation is also extremely effective for driving home how these decentralized networks work.

- Digital goods and services are created through incentive systems that coordinate people to create them.

The takeaway?

It is very possible that what drives mainstream interest in 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 and 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 in decentralized networks outside pure speculation will come from applications outside money and finance.

Web 3, Social money, and NFTs fit this bill.

Disclosure: I own and mine Helium. https://messari.io/asset/helium/profile