2026-05-09 –, Grégr Stage
Ethereum onboarding is often framed as a usability problem, but every design choice embeds values. This talk explores onboarding as an ethical and cultural act, examining how UX decisions shape power, consent, self-sovereignty, and inclusion across diverse global contexts.
As Ethereum reaches beyond early adopters, onboarding has become one of its most consequential design challenges. Too often, onboarding is treated as a neutral process of simplification, yet choices around custody, identity, recovery, abstraction, and defaults fundamentally shape who holds power, who bears risk, and who is excluded.
This talk reframes onboarding as an ethical and cultural system rather than a purely technical or product problem. It explores how interface design encodes assumptions about responsibility, trust, autonomy, and user competence, and how these assumptions differ across cultures, economic realities, and levels of digital literacy.
Drawing on Ethereum’s public-good ethos and its ambition to serve as global infrastructure, the session examines tensions between usability and self-sovereignty, simplification and recentralization, protection and paternalism. Rather than proposing specific tools or standards, the talk offers a conceptual framework for evaluating onboarding decisions through an ethical lens.
If Ethereum is to function as a credible, neutral layer for global participation, its onboarding experiences must reflect moral responsibility and cultural plurality, not just efficiency or growth metrics.
I am a student at the Ku Leuven where i study Communication and business management. I love Ethereum culture and decentralization. I am also a community builder at Book Of Ethereum.