Starting with the emergence of friend.tech in the fall of last year, I believe we’ve left the “infrastructure phase” of crypto for another “application phase.” This time, I believe we’ve entered the “99 cent app” phase of crypto.

By “99 cent apps” I’m referring back to the late 2000s / early 2010s shortly after the launch of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. During that period, many of us have memories of checking the App / Play Store to see what was new and purchasing apps and widgets for 99 cents or less.

We didn’t know if the developer of the project would stick around and continue development next year. We didn’t seek out a highly polished experience. And we didn’t think much about paying 99 cents to try something out. A few examples of these apps include: the flashlight app, iBeer, Doodle Jump, the Vuvuzela app, the weather widget, and Camera+. I’m sure you can think of many more.

At this time, there was a prevailing culture around creating and trying apps without the pressure of needing it to be groundbreaking. It was low stakes, experimental, and fun. And while most of these apps didn’t grow into something larger, they confirmed that consumers would spend time and engage with apps using their touch screens; they proved that both gaming and social apps could have early traction; and they paved the way for more mature mobile apps down the road.

It is also a massive departure from the expectations a user has from a mobile app today. As the mobile app industry matured, consumer expectations around polish and support rose, and the App / Play Store charts ossified to a handful of apps every year. This is evident when looking at the top downloaded mobile apps, where 8 of the top 10 most downloaded apps from 2022 were also present in the charts for 2023. Culturally, we’ve developed an inertia for trying new things.

The reason I’m excited about the “99 cent apps” of crypto is because we’re on the precipice of rediscovering this culture for creating and trying new things. Just in the last few weeks, we’ve seen the launch of Frames on Farcaster and Crypto: the Game. And users are testing out these projects with the excitement to try something new. Just head over to /onchain-gaming on Warpcast as one example and you will feel the momentum and the creative energy from both builders and users.

We can thank the “infrastructure phase” for enabling a lot of what we see today. The two biggest historical bottlenecks to creative consumer crypto applications were (a) scalability and (b) user onboarding. The architectural move to rollups, along with rollup frameworks like OP Stack and RaaS providers like Conduit have lowered the barrier to creating new blockspace by an order of magnitude. For user onboarding, wallet providers like Privy have streamlined the user authentication experience and the ability to create wallets on behalf of your user in a safe way.

As the “99 cent app” phase of crypto moves forward from here, a few areas that I believe will be opportunities for further adoption:

• Discovery / distribution. Today, discovery for new apps and games happen on crypto Twitter and increasingly on Farcaster. As more 99 cent apps emerge, discovery will become more chaotic and challenging. The mobile app stores had the benefit of a single destination with dedicated charts and search. Will discovery mainly happen on Farcaster channels moving forward? Or are dedicated discovery solutions necessary to keep up with the growing volume of projects?

• Onboarding funds. Anyone who’s used crypto they’ve had for years to interact onchain knows the pain of being hit with a long list of taxable events the following year. Moreover, while bridging experiences will continue to improve, better fiat onramps will be just as effective, even for crypto native users. For most new crypto apps, I would prefer the ability to double-click, authorize Apple Pay to deposit $5 into a newly created Privy wallet. Coinbase has a massive advantage for delivering this experience given their integrated product portfolio of Coinbase Pay, Coinbase Wallet, and Base. Other wallets and rollups will need to find additional solutions if they don’t want to become fully dependent on Coinbase.

• Remixing. Some 99 cent apps will spark ideas for a remix of the original. As 99 cent apps are meant to be casual and fun, many will carry shorter half lives than apps intended to be more serious and polished. Remixing can extend the half life of a 99 cent app with new mechanics or rules that were not part of the original. The key question for remixes will be if and how credit is traced back to the original project.

Many people talk about Schelling points, but it’s rare to experience one first hand. We seem to be living through one today with the “99 cent app” phase of crypto, and I’m excited to test out these new ideas as a curious user.