Picture this: It’s the late 1990s, and you’re trying to buy a book online. You find it, add it to your cart, and then face a series of clunky, multi-page checkout forms that load painfully slowly. Halfway through entering your shipping and billing details, you wonder if it’s even worth the hassle—so you give up and close the browser. Back in those early e-commerce days, such abandoned carts were commonplace, often caused by confusing interfaces and a lack of trust in online shopping.

Fast-forward to today, and while online checkout has improved drastically, abandoned carts are still an issue: a 2024 study on the Autify Blog by Bruna Leite shows that roughly 70% of shopping carts end up abandoned. That’s a stark reminder of how easily potential buyers drop off when they face even minor friction or confusion. In fact, research from PYMNTS indicates that 55% of shoppers will quit the purchase if the checkout process feels too frustrating or time-consuming. Such statistics highlight a critical lesson: every extra step or confusing interface in an online purchase flow can translate to losing a customer.

E-commerce’s Evolution: Reducing Friction for Mainstream Adoption

Online retailers learned early on that if they wanted to convert would-be buyers into actual customers, they had to streamline checkout. This led to tactics like auto-filling forms, providing clear security assurances (such as SSL badges), and even introducing one-click purchasing. A famous example is Amazon’s '1-Click' purchase option, popularized in the early 2000s. According to tech commentator Mike Arsenault (writing about the value of Amazon’s patent), removing the multi-page checkout and allowing customers to buy with a single click boosted conversion rates dramatically. By saving shipping and payment details on file, Amazon effectively removed the frustration that caused many users to abandon their carts.

Over time, e-commerce companies refined their websites, simplified return policies, and invested heavily in user experience (UX) research. As a result, buying a book, a gadget, or a new pair of shoes online shifted from a cumbersome 10-minute ordeal to a near-instant, frictionless process. Today, the average internet user can complete a purchase in seconds, often on a mobile phone, without batting an eye.

DeFi’s Turn: A Maze of Steps for First-Time Buyers

While e-commerce spent decades minimizing friction, a new frontier—decentralized finance (DeFi)—is grappling with it all over again. Try putting yourself in the shoes of a newcomer who wants to buy a token on a DeFi exchange. It can feel just as complicated as online shopping did in the ’90s:

1. Wallet Setup: You open a DeFi site and click “Connect Wallet,” only to realize you must install a specialized crypto wallet like MetaMask or Rainbow. That involves creating an account and generating a 12–24 word seed phrase, which you’re warned to store securely or risk losing access to your funds forever.

2. Acquiring Cryptocurrency: Next, you discover you need crypto (e.g., ETH) in your new wallet to purchase tokens or cover transaction (gas) fees. This generally requires creating an account on a centralized exchange, completing identity verification (KYC), linking a bank account, and finally buying the crypto before sending it over to your wallet. Each step has a learning curve that can feel intimidating to someone used to one-click online purchases.

3. Navigating Fees and Confirmations: Once you have ETH in your wallet, you have to return to the DeFi platform, approve the contract, and pay a gas fee to execute the trade. Your wallet may prompt you to confirm (or even customize) various technical parameters. Any mistake can lead to a failed transaction or, worse, the permanent loss of funds.

It’s no wonder so many potential users drop off at these points. A 2025 post on the WEPIN Blog exploring Web3 onboarding funnels notes that many people abandon DeFi apps as soon as they realize they must jump through multiple hoops—downloading extensions, copying addresses, or converting fiat to crypto—just to make a single purchase. The entire process can take hours for first-timers, rife with warnings that failing to record the correct addresses or seed phrases can have dire consequences.

How Drop-Off Rates Hamstring DeFi Growth

High drop-off rates mean lost users and stunted growth, a reality facing many DeFi projects today. Despite boasting impressive metrics (such as billions of dollars in Total Value Locked, or TVL), the DeFi ecosystem remains small relative to traditional finance. Most activity comes from a narrow slice of tech-savvy “whales” and early adopters, while casual investors often get stuck in the onboarding process and never convert.

This mirrors the early days of online shopping, when only the particularly determined or tech-inclined would fight through clumsy checkout flows. As Rhys Northwood pointed out in a recent AInvest article on DeFi adoption, the user experience can feel “totally broken” because seemingly simple actions require too many steps, confirmations, and disclaimers. For mainstream users, that complexity becomes a giant “Do Not Enter” sign, preventing them from engaging with DeFi. In short, friction throttles adoption.

The Path Forward: Learning from E-commerce’s Playbook

The history of e-commerce is an invaluable lesson: mass adoption follows when the user experience stops being scary and starts feeling intuitive. How many people would shop on Amazon today if it still took 10 minutes to complete an order, typing in shipping data on multiple screens and re-entering credit card details every time? Probably not many. Instead, Amazon’s success was catalyzed by frictionless checkout.

In the same way, DeFi has to reduce its complexity if it wants to move beyond niche adoption. That means streamlining the wallet setup process, embedding simpler transaction flows, and providing user-friendly safeguards to mitigate common mistakes. Some innovative teams are already experimenting with “one-click DeFi” or embedded wallets that handle gas fees automatically. Others are integrating fiat on-ramps directly into decentralized apps (dApps), sparing users from jumping between multiple platforms. While none of these solutions are fully mature yet, they point to a future where buying a DeFi token might feel as easy as clicking “purchase” on your favorite e-commerce site.

So, Who Is Solving This?

Much like online shopping’s evolution from clunky abandoned carts to one-click purchases, decentralized finance must overcome friction to realize its full potential. Traditional e-commerce showed us that streamlining the buying process boosts conversion rates and broadens access—yet in DeFi, a multi-step onboarding process still leads to high drop-off rates.

This is where ONCHAIN®️ Ramp comes in. Drawing on lessons from traditional e-commerce, ONCHAIN®️ Ramp reimagines the digital asset acquisition process, transforming it into an effortless, one-click experience—just like buying a book on Amazon. By simplifying wallet setup, cutting unnecessary steps, and incorporating intuitive safeguards, it directly addresses the drop-off dilemma while staying true to Onchain Labs’ mission of moving everyday finance on-chain.

As the industry embraces more user-friendly solutions, the gap between traditional finance and decentralized platforms will narrow—paving the way for a frictionless, accessible financial ecosystem.

Sign up for ONCHAIN®️ Ramp early access today at onchainramp.com—seats are filling up fast!