Crypto poured years into new products. The next challenge is keeping users

Someone might initially come for a yield incentive, for example, then use the same assets to trade or spend, he said.

"Show me adoption"

Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank investor and chairman of O'Leary Ventures, sees a similar problem playing out among the blockchains themselves.

Speaking at the Avalanche Summit in New York last month, O'Leary said networks looking for institutional business need to show that companies are actually using them.

“The challenge you have is ‘show me, show me adoption,’” O'Leary said.

“The merits of that chain are well understood for those technologists and S&P 500 companies that understand why that's important in building capacity and not being concerned about transaction volume,” he said. “I get it, but what I want to see, and everybody else, and which is why they call it work, is you got to get some deals, and you got to get adoption, not just tests.”

One big customer can also make landing the next one easier. “The most powerful marketing tool of technology is word of mouth between competitors,” O'Leary said.

There is a consumer version of that, too. Financial services depend heavily on trust, Shen said. People are handing over their money, sometimes their paycheck and savings. Hearing that someone else has used a service and found it reliable matters.