Despite the exposure bitcoin receives in the mainstream media, fewer than half a million people use it daily.
Educating people about bitcoin has been a successful strategy in building a knowledgeable community, but it has its limits.
Instead of telling people about bitcoin's benefits, we should show them through experiences that improve their lives.
Useful technology changes behavior, habits, and society; experiences can change people's minds, and we build those experiences with technology.
To reach mainstream adoption, the way forward is to leverage bitcoin's strengths as a borderless, open, and P2P currency to improve the lives of affluent people with money to spend.
By adding bitcoin to apps they already use or disintermediating current services, we can create better ways for affluent people to transact directly with each other.
The winning formula is to insert bitcoin tech into an existing, suboptimal user experience, just like the iPhone did with the digital camera.
Education is important for those who need inside-baseball-level information, but for everyday use, experiences are more important than education.
Improving people's experiences with bitcoin can be done through integrating it into popular apps where P2P payments can be made.
The aim is to allow bitcoin tech to create a better user experience, which should drive adoption, particularly if the app is limited by a company taking a cut.