Rodeo, one of the more promising onchain culture apps on Base, just made a significant shift: it’s dropping ETH pricing in favor of dollar-denominated credits.
Collecting a post there now costs a flat $0.25, rather than 0.0001 ETH.
Rodeo now runs on dollars! 💵
This dramatically simplifies the Rodeo user experience. 🪄
1. Prices are stable.
2. Everyone in the world understands what a dollar is.
3. You can talk about Rodeo without needing to explain crypto.
The reasoning makes sense. Rodeo is already laser-focused on streamlined UX, e.g. one-tap collecting and logins via email or Instagram. And ETH introduces friction, math, and volatility when onboarding non-crypto users.
In contrast, dollars are stable and universally understood—important traits for an app that wants to feel like Instagram but run onchain.
Some crypto-native users might wince at the “no crypto bullshit” marketing here, to be sure, and there are fair questions about how dollar pricing fits into the broader composability of the onchain ecosystem.
Yet the tradeoffs seem worth exploring. Rodeo isn’t a DeFi app—it’s trying to build a social network for creativity. In that context, UX simplicity is arguably the most important thing to hone in on.
Rodeo is still onchain, of course. This shift is just an attempt to better mask complexity so users can focus on their content. It’s a bet that better UX will lead to broader adoption, and in that sense, it’s a valuable experiment worth keeping an eye on!
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