In the late nineties, the present state of crypto resembles technically, in limited use cases within the late nineties and, in response to polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.
In an interview with CoinTelegraph, Nailwal identified several vital development areas to enhance the user experience, including seamless fiat-on and off-ramps, custody solutions that tackle vital restoration, and hardware letters which are integrated into mobile devices.
“We are within the alternative of the Internet, through which even a connection to the Internet was a tedious task as in the event you needed to be a mini engineer to hook up with the Internet-we are still there in crypto.”
“We are probably still in 1998 and it can take at the least 10 to fifteen years for crypto to be seen in his full fame,” added the polygon founder.
While the AOL days of the Internet is taken into account revolutionary, it only existed limited functions and a high entry barrier. Source: PC Magazine
The Internet lasted between 30 and 40 to attain mass acceptance and started with a limited variety of applications. In the late nineties, the web's AOL era focused totally on e -mail and basic web browsing, but today the Internet comprises the whole economy.
Nailwal said that the present state of the crypto is comparable, since financial application cases, particularly market speculation, focus at this point in the middle of the crypto.
However, as soon because the financial applications have been fully developed and adequate acceptance has been achieved, the acceptance of crypto will spread to alternative applications resembling decentralized social media, games and other area of interest sectors.
To be in crypto today is early for the party
Nailwal identified that even the essential use for cryptocurrency -related, which is financially, was not fully developed.
According to a report by Bitcoin (BTC) Financial Services Company River from February 2025, only 4% of the worldwide BTC individuals are the unique cryptocurrency with the most important market capitalization and has the mainstream appeal.
Bitcoins adoption path. Source: river
The report showed that BTC has only reached about 3% of its total adoption path if institutions, the whole addressable market and the right portfolio allocations are taken under consideration.
This small variety of BTC owners shows that the crypto mass acceptance has been removed for years and signals that the whole industry remains to be within the early development phase of development.