High Fees and Costly Errors Undercut Web3’s Inclusion Promise

Web3 has pitched permissionless, borderless access and self-custody as a route to broader financial inclusion. Yet volatile gas fees, complicated wallet and cross-chain procedures, and irreversible transactions leave users carrying risks that conventional finance often absorbs. The issue is particularly significant for ChangeNOW, a non-custodial crypto exchange handling more than $1 billion in monthly volume: access alone does not make a financial system affordable or safe for ordinary users.

Pauline Shangett, ChangeNOW’s chief strategy officer, said on Aug. 10, 2026, that mistakes repeated across many customers should be treated as product data rather than dismissed as user error. She called for simpler interfaces, greater abstraction of blockchain mechanics and safeguards that reduce the cost of learning. The report did not provide an average transaction fee or aggregate dollar loss, but argued that today’s penalties disproportionately exclude users with the least capacity to absorb them.