Fred Wilson, one of the most influential venture capitalists in the United States, believes that the breakthrough time of crypto in 2026 will not come from new blockchains – but from making them invisible to their end users.
“Blockchains are disappearing behind better consumer interfaces that allow users to use, spend, trade and send tokens without worrying about which blockchain they’re on,” Wilson, who called bitcoin an “interesting investment opportunity” back in 2011, wrote in a blog post published last week.
The prediction, tucked into a longer set of Wilson’s tech forecasts for 2026, reflects a view he’s held for years: blockchain’s promise hinges on ease of use, not technical horsepower.
Wilson is a founding partner of Union Square Ventures (USV), the New York-based VC firm behind early bets on Twitter, Etsy and Tumblr. In crypto, he was early to Coinbase (COIN), Ethereum and Filecoin and remains a consistent voice in long-term conversations about how blockchain could reshape the Internet.
Wilson, who has often described blockchains as “the next big thing” after social and mobile, has also been openly critical of the crypto industry’s worst habits. He has pushed back against the culture of hype and token speculation, warning that short-term greed threatens the space’s long-term credibility.
The real work, in Wilson’s view, includes things like decentralized identity, peer-to-peer funding, and open protocols that anyone can build on.
In previous posts, he has compared the current state of crypto to the early internet, where even sending an email required a level of technical know-how.
The way forward, he seems to believe, lies in better design. Apps need to handle the infrastructure details — like which chain a transaction is on — in the background, so users can focus on what they want to do, not how to do it.
For Wilson, this isn’t just a UX issue—it’s the difference between crypto remaining a niche technology and achieving widespread adoption.
