What’s Really Holding Blockchain Back?
A Systems Perspective on Adoption in 2025 entering 2026
Blockchain is less a story of explosive overnight adoption and more a long arc of systemic evolution. As founders, builders, and investors alike ask “when will blockchain go mainstream?”, the better question may be:
What really holds blockchain back, and what progress has actually happened by 2025 and as we enter 2026?
At Access Ventures, we view blockchain through a systems lens, the same lens we apply in work like Reconstruct and our One-Pocket thesis. From that perspective, adoption isn’t measured in press cycles or price charts; it’s measured by whether systems improve access, agency, and participation in real economic activity.
What Do We Mean by “Adoption”?
In technology, “adoption” typically refers to the rate and depth at which people and institutions integrate a new tool into everyday use. Traditional models like Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations curve help explain why most technologies stall before full adoption, especially when they require significant shifts in behavior and infrastructure.
Blockchain isn’t a single tech but it’s an entire stack of protocols, infrastructure, and applications. Each component travels through the adoption curve at its own pace:
Protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum have hundreds of millions of users globally, even if not all are everyday transactors. (XtendedView)
Enterprise deployments are expanding where blockchain improves multi-party workflows from supply chain transparency to cloud middleware. (Blockchain Council)
Applications ranging from DeFi to tokenization are growing, but still require on-ramps for mainstream use.
Current Adoption Landscape (2025–2026)
Here’s what the data shows about where blockchain stands today:
User Adoption
More than 560 million people use blockchain or crypto technologies globally in 2025, up significantly from previous years. (XtendedView)
Crypto penetration (as a proxy for blockchain awareness) is approaching ~11% of the global population. (XtendedView)
The user base continues expanding with forecasts projecting 800+ million users and 1.3 billion wallet addresses as network effects deepen. (CoinLaw)
Enterprise and Market Growth
The blockchain technology market was valued at $33.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to expand rapidly through 2035 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 65% internationally. (Business Research Insights)
Enterprise adoption remains strong: cloud blockchain and BaaS solutions are accelerating deployments, especially among financial services and supply chain teams. (Blockchain Council)
By some estimates, the overall blockchain market (including tokenized assets and infrastructure) could exceed a trillion dollars by 2032 as integration expands. (Market.us)
Institutional and Corporate Interest
Blockchain engagements among corporations, particularly Fortune 500 companies, continue to grow as firms explore tokenization, settlement efficiencies, and digital ledgers for multi-party workflows (internal reports and industry analyses).
Institutional interest in crypto allocations and digital asset exposure climbed through 2025, with major stablecoin and institutional investment products emerging alongside traditional offerings. (CoinLaw)
The Real Barriers to Adoption
While the trend signals growth, three major systemic barriers persist, barriers that mirror broader economic system challenges rather than flaws in blockchain itself.
1. Technical Barriers: Infrastructure Still Maturing
Blockchain’s promise – decentralized, secure, tamper-resistant technology – comes with real engineering trade-offs:
Distributed networks must propagate data globally, which limits throughput compared to centralized systems.
Layer-2 solutions, rollups, and advanced protocols have improved scalability, but complexity still outweighs simplicity for most users.
This is familiar territory: foundational technologies often require years of invisible infrastructure work before broad usability. In Reconstruct, we see similar patterns among deep systems innovations that early investment in invisible infrastructure ultimately enables future adoption.
2. Financial Barriers: Liquidity, Access, Compliance
Blockchain’s most compelling promise (democratized access to capital and financial services) still grapples with entrenched frictions:
Fiat on-ramps remain complex and costly in many regions.
Regulatory uncertainty persists, especially in cross-border and institutional contexts.
Custody, compliance, and risk systems are still developing to support large-scale participation.
These issues are less about blockchain itself and more about how financial systems adapt to new socioeconomic models and a theme we explore in Alternatives to Equity. Without parallel innovations in capital structures, adoption risks remaining narrow.
3. Behavioral Barriers: People First, Technology Second
Adoption ultimately depends on people. Today’s users want speed, simplicity, clarity, and trust and not just technical novelty:
Wallet management, private key systems, and unfamiliar terminology all raise entry barriers.
Most users prefer systems that “just work” and visible without conscious engagement.
In One-Pocket Investing, we discuss how aligning incentives and simplifying user experiences accelerates participation. The same holds for blockchain: real adoption requires lowering behavioral friction.
Why This Still Matters
Blockchain adoption isn’t a fa…but foundational. Just like the internet itself, it will advance unevenly and quietly before showing up everywhere:
Real-world use cases like tokenized assets, enterprise workflows, and decentralized finance are scaling in parallel with legacy systems.
Regulatory clarity, institutional tools, and consumer-grade applications are maturing together.
Adoption progresses not because technology improves but because people find real value in systems that expand access and agency.
Looking Ahead: The Long View
Blockchain adoption won’t flip a switch. It is an adaptive curve of systems change that is driven by infrastructure, incentives, and human behavior.
What appears like slow adoption today may be the quiet formation of new economic scaffolding, the same scaffolding that enabled cloud computing, mobile apps, and global digital finance.
At Access Ventures, we invest in systems because systems enable participation, not just products. Adoption happens when systems absorb friction, become intuitive, and empower people to rethink how they engage with the economic world.
Related Access Ventures Resources
Why Access Ventures Invests in Blockchain — our thesis on systemic value over speculation
Reconstruct Challenge initiative for systems innovation: https://www.reconstructchallenge.com/
One-Pocket Investing framework on aligned behavior incentives
Alternatives to Equity exploration of systemic capital exclusions
(Originally posted February 2019, updated December 2025)