Alistair Rennie is a researcher and strategist specializing in cryptocurrency and Web3 adoption, who serves as the Global Head of Innovation & Thought Leadership at Protocol Theory. He analyzes the spread of emerging technologies to mainstream audiences by applying consumer insights and behavioral data. Before focusing on Web3, Rennie held senior research and insight leadership positions at companies including Google, Post Office Ltd, and Ipsos MORI. ^[2]​

Education

Rennie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing Communications from the University of Greenwich. ^[1]​

Career

Rennie began his career in consumer research at Ipsos MORI, working as a Research Executive from 2002 to 2004 and subsequently as a Senior Research Executive until 2005. He then transitioned to the financial services sector at First Rate Exchange Services, where he held roles as a customer and senior insight analyst before becoming Insight Manager in 2007, concentrating on consumer and commercial analysis. In 2009, Rennie joined Post Office Ltd, where he held a series of senior leadership roles over seven years, including Senior Business Decisions Manager, Head of Business Decisions, Head of Innovation & Insight, and Head of Insight Strategy & Innovation. In these positions, he was responsible for managing in-house insight teams to inform product, marketing, and commercial strategies.

In 2016, Rennie moved to Google's London office as a Research Lead for Search, Retail, and Mobile. His work involved leading industry research and crafting narratives concerning user experience and data privacy. From 2021 to 2022, he served as the Research Lead for Thought Leadership in the EMEA region, where he led the development of the "Messy Middle" research framework, a model explaining complex consumer purchasing behavior.

Rennie has described his career as a convergence of experiences that inevitably led him to Web3. His work in consumer insights fostered a desire for better data handling, his time in financial services made him seek more efficient monetary systems, and his role at Google prompted him to envision a better internet. In 2022, this culminated in a move into the cryptocurrency industry when he relocated to Auckland, New Zealand, to join the exchange Easy Crypto. There, he served first as Head of Marketing Operations & Business Intelligence and was later promoted to Head of Strategic Insight, focusing on data-driven marketing, consumer segmentation, and growth strategy. After his tenure at Easy Crypto, he worked on contract as a Business Director at the research and consulting firm TRA in 2023. In April 2024, Rennie was appointed Global Head of Innovation & Thought Leadership at Protocol Theory, a consumer insights firm dedicated to Web3. He was drawn to the company after discovering a shared vision with its Managing Director, Jonathan Inglis, to apply a consumer-focused lens to the Web3 space. In this role, he leads research and strategy focused on digital assets, Web3, and other emerging technologies. ^{[1] [3]}

Interviews

Mercuryo x Protocol Theory

In the October 2025 HackSeasons Conference interview with Petr Kozyakov, Rennie discussed the US crypto research study they conducted together with Mercuryo. He emphasized that combining insight with capability and scale was key to understanding user needs and driving mainstream adoption beyond early adopters. Rennie highlighted that crypto is still largely treated as an investment by high-income users. At the same time, lower-income populations could benefit more from crypto as a payment and remittance tool and for financial inclusion. He noted usability barriers like complex wallets, seed phrases, and interfaces, and stressed that mainstream adoption depends on making crypto simple, trialable, and aligned with everyday financial behavior, rather than requiring deep technical knowledge. Rennie also argued that trust emerges from use and experience rather than regulation, which serves only as an enabler, and emphasized that partnerships within the crypto industry, rather than just with traditional financial institutions, are critical to preserving decentralization while scaling adoption. ^[5]

Presentations

Next Billion Crypto Users

At the January 2025 Australian Crypto Convention, Rennie presented on the next billion crypto users, providing a data-driven perspective on adoption trends. Rennie emphasized that, though crypto ownership is currently only 8% of the global population, it is growing rapidly and that mainstream adoption depends on reaching the early majority. Using Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovation model, he highlighted that innovators and early adopters currently lead adoption and that the five adoption factors—observability, trialability, complexity, compatibility, and relative advantage—predict adoption success. Comparing crypto with technologies like mobile contactless payments, smart home speakers, ride-sharing apps, and generative AI, Rennie showed that crypto lags in perception across all five factors, but stressed that its strong community, aligned values, and potential for trialable, visible experiences offer opportunities to accelerate adoption by changing public perception rather than the underlying technology. ^[4]

Panels

Crypto Gaming 2025

At the January 2025 Australian Crypto Convention, Rennie joined Michael Hanlon of Playa3ull Games, Simone Clow of Zebrar, Ida Monk of W3GG, and Ivan Vantagiato of Crypto Serpent to examine the state of Web3 gaming. The panel argued that the sector still struggles with latency, interoperability, wallet friction, regulatory uncertainty, and speculative token dynamics, which limit its appeal to mainstream gamers despite strong engagement among crypto-native users—particularly in APAC, where many players are motivated by income opportunities. Rennie emphasized that Web3 and traditional gaming operate in largely separate ecosystems, driven by different incentives such as token rewards, participation in innovation, and digital asset ownership, none of which have yet translated cleanly to Web2 audiences. Panelists debated whether future titles like GTA could successfully integrate blockchain elements, generally agreeing that seamless, “invisible” infrastructure and hybrid models—where gameplay ran off-chain while assets settled on-chain—offered the most practical path forward. They concluded that progress would likely come through improved UX, more thoughtful token design (including shifts from play-to-earn toward play-to-airdrop models), regulatory clarity, cross-chain asset portability, and gradual convergence between decentralized ownership and traditional game quality standards. ^[6]