Really appreciate how clearly you’ve broken down the retention crisis. The “renting attention vs. earning understanding” distinction hits hard, and it’s exactly what most teams overlook.

What we’ve seen on our side is that users stick around when they feel clarity around what they’re doing, not just rewards. The moment someone understands the “why” behind a transaction or a protocol behavior, engagement becomes intrinsic, not incentivized.

The part that resonated most: contextual education at the moment of action. That’s where everything changes: retention, trust, and even how users talk about the product.

More projects need to rethink onboarding from first principles like this. Great read.