When I started building blockchain products, I frequently said blockchain is a database; it doesn't save the world.

Technology on its own rarely does. Every technology's value hinges on the functionality and utility it brings to everyday people in their environments.

Tori Samples is a senior product manager at the Stellar Development Foundation.

Consider another technology that once seemed new and frightening: the humble elevator. The elevator is ubiquitous today because people appreciate its value for a specific need and context. Elevators are not a panacea, nor are they the only way to move up and down. However, most people use and trust elevators because the industry followed basic product principles every builder should emulate.

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The average user can't explain how a metal box moves them through vertical space, but they see what elevators enable for them. What was once a new, frightening technology has become an uncontroversial tool with mass adoption. Over time, the touches developed to make people comfortable — elevator music and a human operator — have gone by the wayside in favor of consistent regulations and widespread trust.

I study the deployment of products like elevators because mass adoption is the key to blockchain no longer being perceived as scary and/or inconsequential. I build products for everyday people who are often marginalized due to factors outside of their control: where they were born, lack of financial infrastructure, conflict or natural disasters.

Products must be undeniably useful to be adopted by people in these environments. That's why I currently lead the development of the Stellar Disbursement Platform, the bulk payments product that powers humanitarian cash assistance, cross-border payroll, government social programs and paying unbanked gig-workers and creators. That's also why I previously built Boss Money, a digital wallet for refugees and migrants in Africa.

Perhaps the biggest lesson learned from building and deploying blockchain products for the "real world" is that users care about how products benefit them, not about the tech underneath. Somehow, the crypto industry is still figuring this out. We spend too much time advertising the blockchain equivalent of elevator pulleys and levers (the raw tech) when we should be emphasizing value and function.

If a blockchain product makes a person's life tangibly easier or better, they will likely use it. They'll never be sold by an explanation of a specific layer 1’s consensus mechanism. As a former founder, I know it can be fun to jump to the inner workings of a product. I also know that none of my customers — mostly refugees in Rwanda — would say they were sold by those inner workings. They used our wallet because it allowed them to send money to people in other countries, hold multiple currencies and avoid carrying cash across borders. Let the results speak for themselves.