Crypto: Crypto’s Decentralization Promise Breaks At Interoperability

Crypto’s interoperability layer reveals a gap between the industry’s decentralization narrative and how value actually moves across blockchains.

Moving value across blockchains is now largely mediated by a small group of centralized intermediaries despite crypto’s long-standing claims of decentralization.

Michael Steuer, president and chief technology officer of Casper Network, framed this dynamic as a structural outcome of the industry’s approach to interoperability and user experience.

With a background spanning mobile gaming, enterprise software and early blockchain development, Steuer approaches the industry’s interoperability problem as a question of how real users interact with technology.

“For some reason, in crypto, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask users to care about things they would never think about in the real world,” he told Cointelegraph.

Moving value across chains requires investors to understand how bridges work or rely on centralized players that reintroduce risks crypto set out to eliminate, Steuer said. As a result, interoperability has been pushed into the hands of a small number of intermediaries.

For most users, interacting with crypto still requires an understanding of infrastructure that would be invisible in almost any other consumer technology.

Moving value often means choosing a network, confirming wallet compatibility, checking bridge support and accounting for fees and delays along the way.

Steuer said this expectation became normalized as the industry grew around early adopters who were willing to tolerate friction.

“We have to think beyond the early adopter and what’s acceptable to them to what’s acceptable to your mom, your dad and your neighbor,” Steuer said. “If this is supposed to be mass-market technology, we can’t expect everyone to think the way crypto natives do.”

Source: CoinTelegraph