Web3 Requirements Definition
Tomohiro Iida · Published April 7, 2026
Requirements definition for a Web3 project involves more considerations than a typical system project, and getting the order wrong tends to cause rework later. This article lays out a checklist covering 4 categories and 10 items, along with a 4-step process for working through requirements definition in practice.
Three reasons Web3 requirements definition is hard
Web3 projects carry difficulties that a conventional web system does not. Understanding this structure before using the checklist helps reduce oversights.
- Technology changes fast, and specifications are hard to pin down
- Protocol upgrades and the spread of Layer 2 networks mean the Web3 technical landscape shifts on a roughly six-month cycle. There is no fixed "right answer" at the requirements stage, so design has to proceed on working hypotheses.
- Legal and regulatory interpretation is still unsettled in places
- Areas such as token issuance, DeFi integration, and stablecoin payments sit in legal gray zones. If requirements definition proceeds without confirming a regulator's interpretation, rework tends to surface in later phases.
- Stakeholders' understanding easily diverges
- Business teams unfamiliar with Web3 and technical teams often disagree on what is actually possible. Unless terminology, assumptions, and constraints are aligned during requirements definition, scope tends to expand without limit.
Requirements checklist (4 categories, 10 items)
The 10 items below organize the points most often missed in Web3 requirements definition into 4 categories. We recommend recording a confirmation status for every item before starting a PoC or full development.
Business requirements
- Is it clear why a blockchain is necessary at all, versus a conventional database?
- Has a decision been made on whether to design a token economy?
- Are the primary user segments confirmed — B2B, B2C, government, or otherwise?
Technical requirements
- Is the chosen chain documented, along with the reasoning (public/private, EVM compatibility)?
- Has an upgradability policy for smart contracts been decided?
- Does the design include off-chain data integration, such as oracles or API gateways?
Legal and regulatory
- Has applicability of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and the Payment Services Act been confirmed with legal counsel?
- Has consistency with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information been confirmed, including whether personal data may be recorded on-chain?
Operations and maintenance
- Are operating rules defined for wallet management and private key backup?
- Is an emergency-stop (circuit breaker) design and incident-response flow in place for smart contracts?
Manage every item with one of three statuses: confirmed, unconfirmed, or not applicable. Starting a PoC or full development with unconfirmed items still open turns those items into obstacles later. Even when an item is marked not applicable, recording the reasoning lets you explain the judgment afterward.
The requirements definition process (4 steps)
The practical process for filling in each checklist item breaks down into 4 steps. Skipping a step tends to raise confirmation costs later in the project.
- Step 1: Map the current state and define the purpose of adopting Web3
- Visualize the current workflow and system setup, then write, in one sentence, which problem Web3 is meant to solve. Leaving this ambiguous turns every later requirement into an unexamined hypothesis.
- Step 2: Investigate technical and legal constraints
- List the technical specifications of candidate chains and the regulations specific to the industry. Making the constraints explicit is what makes it possible to judge whether a requirement is actually feasible.
- Step 3: Draft the requirements document around the checklist
- Using the 4 categories and 10 items above as the backbone, write a requirements document that records the detailed requirements, confirmation status, and owner for each item. Without clear status tracking, unconfirmed items get buried in the document.
- Step 4: Stakeholder review and sign-off
- Bring business, technical, legal, and management stakeholders together for a review. Use this phase to surface every unresolved point and document the agreed starting conditions for a PoC or full development.
When technical feasibility is uncertain at the requirements stage, inserting a PoC before step 3 is an effective design. Feeding the PoC results back into the step-3 requirements document lets you finalize requirements as verified rather than assumed.