Original author: TechFlow
The market is dull. In addition to gambling on meme coins, what new projects and narratives will make people feel different?
A slightly joking answer might be that for Leek, quitting gambling may be worse than quitting smoking.
For VCs, after investing in infrastructure, it’s time to quit smoking.
Yesterday, Puffpaw, a project on berachain focusing on "Quit Smoking to Earn", completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Lemniscap, Volt Capital, Spartan, Folius Ventures, Karatage, Seed Club Ventures, Hypersphere, Panga Capital, EVG, Corner, Social GraphG , Corner, Social GraphG Venture and Nonce Classic participated in the investment.
And, our imagination of DePIN is too poor.
Quitting smoking to earn sounds a bit joyful, but Puffpaw has its own DePIN device - by installing sensors and block connections on smart e-cigarettes, it records the user's smoking behavior to achieve monitoring and motivational effects.
You can switch to an e-cigarette and smoke some coins. This model seems to have advantages in terms of resistance to advancement and public welfare reputation, and it seems easier to implement.
DePINization of electronic cigarettes and gamification of smoking
Obviously, the Puffpaw device is still an e-cigarette at its core.
However, data shows that from 2023 to 2030, the global e-cigarette market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.49%. The total market value is expected to increase from $18.32 billion in 2022 to $46.98 billion in 2030.
This means that puffpaw appears during an upswing in the e-cigarette market. Compared with gamers, technology geeks or athletes (refer to StepN), the base of smokers is definitely larger, and the smoking habit is easier to maintain.
This is indeed a big market. But you may ask, aren’t e-cigarettes still cigarettes? Can smoking like this achieve the effect of quitting smoking?
Don’t worry, let’s take a look at PuffPaw’s own electronic cigarette. The project describes “Vape” in an English context.
Vape is the abbreviation of "Vaporizer" and usually refers to electronic cigarettes or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Popular understanding is that e-cigarette devices are used to heat liquid into vapor for users to inhale.
The difference from traditional cigarettes is that tobacco is not burned, so tar and many harmful substances related to combustion are not produced; nicotine intake can be precisely controlled, vapor is produced instead of smoke, and the smell is lighter.
This thing has a very obvious feature: the device is DePIN-based and smoking is gamified.
DePIN-based devices refer to built-in sensors and block connections that can instantly record users’ smoking behavior data, such as smoking frequency, duration, nicotine intake, etc.
Puffpaw's official tweet stated that an e-cigarette device can be regarded as a node in the project network. While contributing data, it is encrypted and uploaded to the blockchain to ensure privacy and security.
At the same time, anonymized health data can be provided to medical research institutions, insurance companies, etc., so users can gain additional benefits.
On the other end of the spectrum, Puffpaw uses gamification to encourage you to reduce the nicotine content in e-cigarettes and earn more tokens, which is the so-called "Vape to Earn".
The core of this gamification is to turn the quitting process into a fun and rewarding experience.
The first is to set goals. Users can set a limit on the number of daily cigarettes or a goal of gradually reducing them. Secondly, after reaching the goal or reducing the amount of smoking, they will receive token rewards.
In addition, Puffpaw also designed social elements. Vaping devices from different players can identify each other’s data through embedded NFC, allowing users to simply tap their vapes together to instantly connect. This also creates conditions for smoking cessation groups or finding like-minded "smoking friends".
According to Puffpaw’s public information, the reason why it can help quit smoking is mainly based on the following gamification strategies:
Progressive Tapering: By precisely controlling nicotine intake, users can gradually reduce dependence.
Incentive mechanism: If you use low-nicotine or nicotine-free e-cigarette models, you can get more token rewards to encourage users to gradually switch.
Factor weighing: Due to the addition of game and token rules, smokers must weigh and combine several factors to maximize their chances of obtaining tokens.
For example, if you choose an e-liquid with a higher nicotine content, you will get fewer tokens if you smoke more every day; conversely, if you choose e-liquid without nicotine, you will get more tokens with the same smoking frequency. many.
At the same time, the project also considers some virtual NFT gameplay, such as different physical e-cigarette devices corresponding to different bound NFT levels. Under the same conditions, higher-level NFT tokens will inevitably produce more.
So overall, this is a DePIN + GameFi gameplay, which makes up for the lack of real running shoes in StepN.
Is it feasible?
Considering the domestic situation, Puffpaw is definitely targeting larger overseas markets; and e-cigarette supporting sales agencies in different countries may become partners for this project.
At present, Puffpaw has cooperated with local e-cigarette oil brands in South Korea to research nicotine-free e-cigarette ingredients and cooperate to launch related products.
At the same time, the project’s blog shows that it is supported by the Berachain Foundation. As the first DePIN project on Berachain, it benefits from Berachain’s infrastructure and community.
Considering that there are other DeFi projects and NFT projects in the Berachain ecosystem, it seems easy for Puffpaw to cooperate with these other projects. For example, holding an NFT can correspond to the right to use your own e-cigarette equipment, or to accelerate smoking cessation to earn Efficiency etc.
Berachain is a bit unique in terms of image and mechanism design, and this smoking cessation project can easily become an interesting attraction and topic.
Going back to the project itself, if someone is a smoker, the conversion cost is lower than other previous projects.
You can be lazy and don’t want to run with an NFT running shoe; you can have poor equipment and don’t have a good computer to play blockchain games; you can be afraid and dare not scan your iris to upload identity information...
But when I switch to an e-cigarette, the resistance does seem to be much smaller.
Finally, smoking is harmful to health, and the correct attitude is to look at new projects and models in a healthy way.
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with the authorization of partner MarsBit, original text link)
Statement: The article only represents the author's personal views and opinions, and does not represent the objective views and positions of the blockchain. All contents and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and transactions, and the author and Blockchain Client will not be held responsible for any direct or indirect losses caused by investors' transactions.
〈"Quit to Earn" combined with DePIN, what's the point of puffpaw? 〉This article was first published in "Block Guest".