One of the most persistent and least discussed weaknesses across the blockchain industry is not technical. It is not about scalability, cryptography, throughput, or trade-offs in decentralization. It is the chronic lack of a product management mindset.

Across protocols, startups, foundations, and even well-funded blockchain companies, there is a striking underappreciation of product managers' roles in commercialization, deployment, and real-world adoption. This gap is one of the key factors that help explain why, more than a decade into blockchain’s existence, adoption is still far below its theoretical potential. It is especially prevalent within the Ethereum ecosystem community.

Blockchain could fail not because it lacks innovation, but because too much of that innovation never becomes a product.

For too long, the blockchain sector has operated on the "Field of Dreams" fallacy: If you build it, they will come.

Most blockchain projects compensate for weak product thinking with extensive technical documentation. Whitepapers, protocol specs, developer docs, GitHub repositories, and roadmap diagrams are treated as substitutes for product strategy.

The implicit assumption is that if the technology is powerful enough, developers will “figure it out” and build the right applications. This is wishful thinking, not product leadership.

Lengthy documentation does not tell developers what problem to solve, who the user is, what success looks like, or why this solution is better than existing alternatives. It describes how something works, not why it should exist in a specific form.

The implicit expectation is that developers and users will read a 50-page GitBook, understand the nuance of the architecture, and "pick things up and run with it." Developers are not a proxy for product managers. And technical elegance is not a replacement for usability, clarity, or market fit.

This is where the Product Manager becomes the most valuable asset in the room. The PM is not just a project tracker or a backlog groomer; they are the bridge builders.

To close the gap between raw technology and successful implementation, we need to define what a Blockchain PM actually does clearly. Their role is multifaceted and critical:

• The Translator: Engineers speak Solidity, Rust, and ZK-rollups. Users speak of "convenience," "security," and "speed." The PM translates technical capability into user value. They ensure that the 'why' aligns with the 'how'.

• The Friction Hunter: A good PM looks at a dApp and sees every step where a user might drop off. They obsess over onboarding. They ask, "Why do we need three signatures here?" or "How can we abstract away the gas fees?" They fight for the user against the constraints of the protocol.

• The Commercial Strategist: Code does not sell itself. A PM understands market fit. They analyze competitors, identify target demographics, and determine the "minimum viable product" (MVP) that actually solves a pain point. They move the project from an experiment to a commercial entity.

• The Prioritization Engine: In a space where everything moves at the speed of light, it is easy to get distracted by the latest hype cycle (DeFi, then NFTs, then L2s). The PM keeps the team focused on the roadmap that delivers long-term value, preventing scope creep and engineering fatigue.

In other words, product managers turn “this is possible” into “this is useful.”

Without them, blockchain projects drift toward building infrastructure in search of an application, rather than applications anchored in real needs.

In many blockchain circles, “productization” is treated as a downstream concern—something that happens after the protocol is finished, the hard fork is shipped, or the SDK is released.

This is backward.

Technology that is not productized is not technology in the economic sense. It is potential energy. Until it is shaped into something that users can understand, adopt, and rely on, it does not compound value.

The Internet did not succeed because TCP/IP was elegant. It succeeded because product layers—browsers, email clients, search engines, payment rails—translated protocols into experiences. Blockchain will follow the same path, whether intentionally or by force.

It is a well-known fact that a well-marketed mediocre product will be more successful than a great product that is not. Product managers thread the needle for that success.

If blockchain is to move from experimentation to infrastructure, the industry needs to elevate the role of product management dramatically.

I would like to see this issue elevated across the blockchain ecosystem. We need to stop treating Product Management as an afterthought or a role that can be filled by a lead developer in their spare time.

Given the gap between the sophistication of our protocols and the clunkiness of our user experiences, we don't just need a few good PMs. We need thousands of them.

We need product minds from Web2, fintech, gaming, and consumer apps to migrate into this space and challenge the status quo. We need people who are brave enough to tell a brilliant engineer, "This code is amazing, but nobody is going to use it unless we change how it works."

Adoption will not come from a better consensus algorithm. It will come when we prioritize the product as much as we prioritize the protocol.

This is not about diluting decentralization or compromising technical rigor. It is about ensuring that powerful technology actually reaches the people and institutions it is meant to serve.

Until then, much of blockchain’s promise will remain locked behind documentation—technically impressive, economically underutilized, and waiting to be productized.

One of the most persistent and least discussed weaknesses across the blockchain industry is not technical. It is not about scalability, cryptography, throughput, or trade-offs in decentralization. It is the chronic lack of a product management mindset.

Across protocols, startups, foundations, and even well-funded blockchain companies, there is a striking underappreciation of product managers' roles in commercialization, deployment, and real-world adoption. This gap is one of the key factors that help explain why, more than a decade into blockchain’s existence, adoption is still far below its theoretical potential. It is especially prevalent within the Ethereum ecosystem community.

Blockchain could fail not because it lacks innovation, but because too much of that innovation never becomes a product.

For too long, the blockchain sector has operated on the "Field of Dreams" fallacy: If you build it, they will come.

Most blockchain projects compensate for weak product thinking with extensive technical documentation. Whitepapers, protocol specs, developer docs, GitHub repositories, and roadmap diagrams are treated as substitutes for product strategy.

The implicit assumption is that if the technology is powerful enough, developers will “figure it out” and build the right applications. This is wishful thinking, not product leadership.

Lengthy documentation does not tell developers what problem to solve, who the user is, what success looks like, or why this solution is better than existing alternatives. It describes how something works, not why it should exist in a specific form.

The implicit expectation is that developers and users will read a 50-page GitBook, understand the nuance of the architecture, and "pick things up and run with it." Developers are not a proxy for product managers. And technical elegance is not a replacement for usability, clarity, or market fit.

This is where the Product Manager becomes the most valuable asset in the room. The PM is not just a project tracker or a backlog groomer; they are the bridge builders.

To close the gap between raw technology and successful implementation, we need to define what a Blockchain PM actually does clearly. Their role is multifaceted and critical:

• The Translator: Engineers speak Solidity, Rust, and ZK-rollups. Users speak of "convenience," "security," and "speed." The PM translates technical capability into user value. They ensure that the 'why' aligns with the 'how'.

• The Friction Hunter: A good PM looks at a dApp and sees every step where a user might drop off. They obsess over onboarding. They ask, "Why do we need three signatures here?" or "How can we abstract away the gas fees?" They fight for the user against the constraints of the protocol.

• The Commercial Strategist: Code does not sell itself. A PM understands market fit. They analyze competitors, identify target demographics, and determine the "minimum viable product" (MVP) that actually solves a pain point. They move the project from an experiment to a commercial entity.

• The Prioritization Engine: In a space where everything moves at the speed of light, it is easy to get distracted by the latest hype cycle (DeFi, then NFTs, then L2s). The PM keeps the team focused on the roadmap that delivers long-term value, preventing scope creep and engineering fatigue.

In other words, product managers turn “this is possible” into “this is useful.”

Without them, blockchain projects drift toward building infrastructure in search of an application, rather than applications anchored in real needs.

In many blockchain circles, “productization” is treated as a downstream concern—something that happens after the protocol is finished, the hard fork is shipped, or the SDK is released.

This is backward.

Technology that is not productized is not technology in the economic sense. It is potential energy. Until it is shaped into something that users can understand, adopt, and rely on, it does not compound value.

The Internet did not succeed because TCP/IP was elegant. It succeeded because product layers—browsers, email clients, search engines, payment rails—translated protocols into experiences. Blockchain will follow the same path, whether intentionally or by force.

It is a well-known fact that a well-marketed mediocre product will be more successful than a great product that is not. Product managers thread the needle for that success.

If blockchain is to move from experimentation to infrastructure, the industry needs to elevate the role of product management dramatically.

I would like to see this issue elevated across the blockchain ecosystem. We need to stop treating Product Management as an afterthought or a role that can be filled by a lead developer in their spare time.

Given the gap between the sophistication of our protocols and the clunkiness of our user experiences, we don't just need a few good PMs. We need thousands of them.

We need product minds from Web2, fintech, gaming, and consumer apps to migrate into this space and challenge the status quo. We need people who are brave enough to tell a brilliant engineer, "This code is amazing, but nobody is going to use it unless we change how it works."

Adoption will not come from a better consensus algorithm. It will come when we prioritize the product as much as we prioritize the protocol.

This is not about diluting decentralization or compromising technical rigor. It is about ensuring that powerful technology actually reaches the people and institutions it is meant to serve.

Until then, much of blockchain’s promise will remain locked behind documentation—technically impressive, economically underutilized, and waiting to be productized.