Web3 Design Flaws Exclude Low-Capital Users, Says ChangeNOW's Shangett

The Cost of Learning

Web3 users can lose funds by selecting the wrong network, overpaying on fees, or delivering assets to an unsupported destination. These happen regularly. The industry typically frames them as client error—a user problem, not a product problem.

Shangett pushes back. "When the same errors are repeated regularly, however, they're also a sign of a product problem, even if the industry calls this client error." The distinction matters because it shifts responsibility from the individual to the interface.

Consider the math. A $25 network fee hits differently depending on transaction size. A $25 fee represents different proportions of transaction value depending on the amount being transferred, affecting users with smaller amounts more severely. For someone sending $100, that's a 25% loss. For someone sending $10,000, it's negligible noise.

Error Budgets and Inclusion

Shangett introduces the concept of an error budget: Every person using a financial product has what I would call an error budget, the amount of money they can afford to lose while learning how the product works before using it becomes economically irrational.

This framing exposes the real problem. Financial inclusion requires asking whether users can understand what they are doing, recognize dangerous actions before confirming them, and use the product without losing money while learning. Most current interfaces fail this test.

Many crypto interfaces present technical decisions as though all users have the same capital, experience, and tolerance for loss. They don't. Fixed and unpredictable costs are naturally more damaging to people sending smaller amounts, while irreversible mistakes carry greater consequences for clients with limited savings.

Why This Matters Now

The timing of this critique is sharp. Sub-Saharan Africa experienced $205.7 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, up 51.7% over the prior year. Nigeria accounted for $92.1 billion of Sub-Saharan Africa's on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025.

Chainalysis attributed much of Sub-Saharan Africa's crypto activity to inflation, currency devaluation, limited access to foreign exchange, and expanding use of crypto for cross-border payments. These users aren't experimenting with spare change. They're managing real financial survival. An expensive mistake isn't a learning opportunity—it's a crisis.

The Inclusion Gap

Here's the hard truth Shangett articulates: "So a financial system that requires several expensive lessons before it can be used safely may be open, but openness alone does not make it inclusive."

Openness means removing gatekeepers. Inclusion means ensuring the system works for people with different amounts of capital, different levels of technical literacy, and different consequences for failure. Blockchain protocols do not know clients' income, savings, or financial situation, but products often know enough about transactions to recognize problems.

That gap—between what protocols can't know and what products can detect—is where better design lives. It's not about holding users' hands. It's about building interfaces that don't penalize poverty.