Coinbase Co-Founder Explains How Crypto Can ‘Get to 1 Billion Users?’

On Tuesday (24 January 2023), Fred Ehrsam, Co-Founder of Coinbase and crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm, talked about one potential approach to achieving mass adoption of cryptocurrency.

He told his over 212K Twitter followers:

“How does crypto get to 1 billion users? One simple theory: Games with crypto-based money or items get popular. A few grow to tens or hundreds of millions of users. Getting a wallet is just part of the game.

“For sense of scale, the largest games like Fortnite and have 200-400 million users. This would take years, but is plausible and orthogonal to the pure financial use case.

“Meanwhile, crypto as a new money and financial system will just keep chugging along, improve features and functionality, and accumulate users.“

Alex Wettermann, Head of Gaming and Metaverse at Shima Capital, “an early-stage global venture firm focused on supporting cutting edge blockchain startups”, was one of the many people who agreed with Ehrsam’s comments:

It looks like Ehrsam is talking about GameFi, which is defined by Binance Academy as follows:

“GameFi is a fusion of the words game and finance. It refers to play-to-earn blockchain games that offer economic incentives to players. The GameFi ecosystem uses cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain technology to create a virtual gaming environment.

“Typically, players can earn in-game rewards by completing tasks, battling other players, and progressing through the different game levels. They can also transfer their assets outside of the game to trade on crypto exchanges and NFT marketplaces.“