- The 2025 State of Onchain UX report by Reown and Nansen highlights growing wallet usage, poor smart wallet awareness, and rising adoption of chains like Solana and Base.
- 62% of crypto users manage multiple wallets, signaling fragmentation in wallet UX; most users are unaware of smart wallets.
- Adoption is surging on specialized chains like Solana and Base, but interoperability and user education remain key hurdles for broader usage.
Despite soaring adoption and a maturing infrastructure, the user experience (UX) of blockchain technology still lags far behind its innovation curve, according to a new joint report by Reown and Nansen released today. The “2025 State of Onchain UX” examines wallet usage, cross-chain behaviors, and user sentiment through an analysis of Nansen’s extensive onchain data and a YouGov survey of over 1,000 active crypto users in the U.S. and UK.
The report paints a nuanced picture of a sector caught between innovation and friction. While wallets and applications are multiplying, the user journey remains tangled in complexity, with fragmentation, clunky interfaces, and poor education on new tools holding back broader adoption.
From gas challenges to wallet connectivity, the past year has shown that while crypto is becoming more powerful, it’s not necessarily becoming more usable. The report finds that institutional interest is growing, but the retail experience is still not meeting the bar.
“We have seen a surge in innovation alongside some notable challenges,” said Reown CEO Jess Houlgrave. “From solving liquidity fragmentation across chains, user experience challenges around gas, to seamless wallet and app connectivity, to working on ensuring that we can deliver better UX AND better security, the past year has also been shaped by regulatory shifts, changing market dynamics and an influx of institutional interest from payments to RWA tokenization.”
Wallet Usage Rises, but Complexity Stifles Confidence
One of the most telling findings: 62% of users now manage two or more wallets, often balancing between mobile, hardware, and exchange options like Binance. The trend highlights a tradeoff users are making between security and convenience—with no unified solution offering both. While mobile wallets dominate, hardware wallets are increasingly popular among more experienced users seeking tighter control over their funds.
Yet despite a rising interest in crypto wallets, awareness around “smart wallets”—which offer enhanced programmability and features like social recovery—remains abysmally low. A majority of respondents (58%) said they don’t understand how smart wallets work, signaling a major education gap at the intersection of technology and usability.
Token Holdings Shift: Stablecoins Climb, Payments Lag
Nansen’s data also reveals how usage patterns don’t always reflect aspirational rhetoric. While users cite a desire for decentralized payments and social apps, only 12% listed payments as their favorite crypto use case. In contrast, Bitcoin remains the most held asset (64%), and stablecoin adoption has nearly doubled year-over-year, reaching 37%.
This behavioral mismatch highlights an industry still skewed toward speculative trading and wealth preservation rather than day-to-day utility. As highlighted by Jeannie Lim of Paxos in the report, stablecoin growth may offer a bridge toward practical use cases, but mass adoption will require infrastructure upgrades and regulatory clarity.
Specialized Chains and Interoperability Rise
One of the more significant trends noted in the report is the meteoric rise in fees—and activity—on specialized chains. Solana saw a staggering 3,000% year-over-year growth in fees, while Coinbase’s Base chain logged a 464% increase. Though only 10% of users say they frequently use Layer 2 networks, demand for chain interoperability is clearly on the rise.
According to Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen, “Our analysis uncovers how users specialize their activities across different blockchains, with distinct patterns emerging in trading, DeFi usage, and value transfer.”
“This collaboration with Reown transforms complex onchain behaviors into actionable insights, helping the entire industry better understand and serve the needs of web3 users as we collectively build toward wider adoption,” Alexa added.
Cultural Frontiers and UX Opportunities
While technical challenges persist, crypto’s cultural relevance continues to expand—driven in part by NFTs, social wallets, and community-oriented wallets. Coinbase Wallet’s Aneri Amin pointed to the importance of culture-driven onboarding and UX simplification to bring in the next wave of users.
Security sentiment has also improved modestly. According to the survey, 69% of users report feeling safe using crypto—a significant jump from prior years—but this perception hasn’t been matched by actual knowledge. Concepts like Clear Signing, championed by Ledger’s Charles Guillemet, remain underutilized.
Bottom Line: The overarching message of the report is clear: Web3 may be building at breakneck speed, but it is still failing to meet users where they are. As highlighted by industry voices like Eowyn Chen (Trust Wallet) and Jakub Rusiecki (1kx), simplifying interfaces, clarifying use cases, and closing the education gap are essential for unlocking crypto’s full potential.
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