The broader internet didn't take off because the average user understood the mechanics pervading underlying technologies like TCP/IP. Similarly, mobile payments didn't scale because people learned how payment tokenization works. In this exact vein, Web3 platforms gaining the most traction with non-crypto audiences aren't those that have explained what the blockchain is to their users, but rather because they've made it irrelevant to the user experience.
Despite this, the Web3 industry has continued to centre its conversations on different consensus mechanisms, tokenomics, and liquidity strategies, the internal machinery of a technology most users will never need to understand. To this point, the gap between the roughly 560 million people who engage with crypto globally in some form and the billions who don't has persisted, not because the infrastructure isn't ready, but because reaching it has typically required tolerating a level of friction that mainstream users simply will not accept.
The Startale App, part of the Soneium ecosystem, the Ethereum L2 co-developed by Startale Labs and Sony Group through Sony Block Solutions Labs, is one such example of this approach, functioning more like a conventional fintech offering than a Web3 interface. When using the platform, wallet creation requires no seed phrase, gas costs are handled at the infrastructure level, and users can manage assets/earn rewards/access applications through a single interface without needing to understand what an L2 is or how it operates.
Since its mainnet launched in January 2025, Soneium has already processed over 600 million transactions and grown to 5.4 million active wallets, with more than 250 independent developer-built applications now live on the network.
The UX Problem, by the Numbers
The retention data around Web3 has told a consistent story because even during peak interest periods, only between 5 and 10 percent of new users return to interact with a decentralised application within 30 days of their first session.
The friction behind those figures is well-documented, given non-custodial wallet setup requires storing a recovery phrase, funding the wallet with native tokens before any transaction is possible, and manually approving each subsequent action. For a developer familiar with on-chain systems, the logic is clear, but for a novice who simply wants to redeem a loyalty reward or buy a digital collectable, the steps are not worth the effort.
Account abstraction, the technical approach that converts wallets into programmable smart accounts, changes all of this and platforms that have deployed it have seen drop-off rates fall by roughly 60 percent (while simultaneously spurring user retention from approximately 13 percent to around 30 percent).
Soneium's position within this landscape comes with a structural advantage that most L2s simply don't have, i.e. a direct integration with Sony's global entertainment ecosystem, including its PlayStation userbase, Crunchyroll, and Sony Pictures. Thanks to this, it brings an existing audience already oriented toward digital content and platform-based commerce, making it meaningfully easier to convert than users arriving with no prior relationship to digital ownership.
On the numbers front, Soneium's testnet phase drew 14 million wallet participants before its mainnet even launched, suggesting that when entry barriers are lowered, demand increases invariably. Furthermore, the Startale Superstars incubation program reinforces this setup at the application layer, offering a $250,000 prize pool to attract quality developers building for mainstream audiences.
In sum, a gaming application building on Soneium does not have to solve gas management or wallet onboarding UX because those problems have already been handled at the infrastructure layer.
Where All of This Is Headed
The wider Web3 market is projected to grow to $30 billion over the next five years; whether that trajectory holds depends almost entirely on whether the industry can convert initial user interest into sustained engagement. Apple Pay didn't succeed by educating consumers about near-field communication but by making the step count go to one. Blockchain infrastructure is increasingly capable of the same kind of disappearing act, removing itself from the interaction while still delivering what makes it useful.
The platforms most likely to close the gap between 560 million users and the next billion are not the ones building the most visible technology. They're the ones most willing to make it invisible.
Dan Burgin
