DuckChain aims to bring billions of Telegram users from off-chain to on-chain, ensuring seamless compatibility between TON and ecosystems like EVM and BTC.
Written by: ShenChao TechFlow
The crypto market is undergoing an unprecedented 'zoo' cycle, with various animal-themed projects emerging one after another.
In the gaming field, the cat (Catizen) vs. mouse (Hamster) battle leads the trend of earning points;
In the Meme market, hippos, squirrels, spider monkeys, and eagles take turns to push this highly speculative and absurdly comedic track to a climax time and again.
In the public chain ecosystem this year, besides the unique community cultures of Monad and Berachain, perhaps the most anticipated is DuckChain, supported by the magic of TON + Arbitrum's consumer Layer.
On November 18, DuckChain announced the official launch of the mainnet, while launching the innovative ISO concept, allowing users to convert Telegram Stars into on-chain Stars and participate in on-chain interactions, further lowering the cognitive and participation threshold for users. Within less than a week of launching, DuckChain achieved a remarkable result of 'the number of active wallets for recharging Stars exceeding 1 million,' and the on-chain transaction volume exceeded 5 million by the time of this writing.
On this important milestone, we are fortunate to have an in-depth conversation with DuckChain founder Ducking.
For the current public chain competition, finding the right track and doing good development is equally important. For those who are newly familiar with DuckChain, it seems that this project carries many labels: the first EVM-compatible consumer Layer of the TON ecosystem, supported by Arbitrum, over 1 million paid users on the test net, total users exceeding 10 million...
Although it may seem dazzling, Ducking, who has rich investment analysis and quantitative experience, is very adept at summarizing the essence of the problem in simple terms:
As the first consumer Layer to provide EVM development environment for developers on TON, DuckChain aims to bring billions of Telegram users from off-chain to on-chain, ensuring seamless compatibility between TON and ecosystems like EVM and BTC.
When discussing 'what kind of applications are more likely to be favored by DuckChain,' Ducking frankly said:
DuckChain will prioritize supporting applications with potential breakout capabilities, truly bringing Web2 users into Web3 and providing users with diverse application scenarios and seamless interaction experiences, including but not limited to Meme, GameFi, SocialFi, and innovative DeFi projects.
In this episode, let us follow Ducking's sharing to delve into the unique 'consumer Layer' of DuckChain, the past and present of this little yellow duck with sunglasses leading a community culture of millions of users.
Entering the founder Ducking: firmly believe TG is the traffic entrance for Web3 Mass Adoption.
TechFlow: I am glad to have the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with you. First, please introduce yourself (you can share some past educational experiences, Crypto industry/entrepreneurial experiences, and the circumstances of founding DuckChain, etc.).
Ducking:
Hello everyone, I am Ducking, the founder of DuckChain. I am very glad to have this opportunity to communicate in depth with you.
I entered the Crypto industry all-in in 2019. Before that, I worked in investment analysis and quantitative work at a Web2 investment company and studied for a master's degree in business at Cambridge University. After learning about Crypto, I made the decision to drop out.
In the Crypto field, my experience mainly spans from exchanges to VC to quantitative funds. In 2021, I established a Studio focused on innovative research and development of Crypto products, providing product support for many projects listed on Binance and Coinbase.
Last September, I noticed TON and the Telegram ecosystem. At that time, the market was not very optimistic, but I firmly believed that Telegram would be the direction for the next Web3 Mass Adoption. It was also at this time that our team planned to develop some innovative products on TON. During this process, we found that the underlying architecture of TON was very unfriendly to developers, and many developers needed to spend months to grasp the basics, which led me to come up with the idea of improving the developer environment of TON.
In April this year, the Tap to Earn Game became popular on TON, and we initially realized the enormous traffic dividends of Telegram, which we had never seen in nearly a decade of Crypto development. This has further confirmed the significance of Telegram as an ecological traffic entrance.
However, following the emergence of some popular projects, people have also discovered the shortcomings of the underlying technical facilities of the TON chain, as well as issues such as the lack of vibrancy in the developer ecosystem. Ultimately, this is because the TON's FunC language is unfamiliar to 99% of developers.
Therefore, if TON wants to enter the next stage, the core issue should be to attract more excellent developers. This gave us the idea of bringing the EVM development environment and developers into the TON ecosystem. If developers can use Solidity to develop on TON, we believe it will bring about the next wave for TON.
TG billion-user reserve + powerful EVM infrastructure + comprehensive liquidity integration = DuckChain
TechFlow: In the eyes of many, DuckChain carries many impressive labels, such as the first consumer Layer of the TON ecosystem, the first EVM-compatible L2 of the TON ecosystem, and the first non-EVM Layer supported by Arbitrum, etc. If you could only introduce DuckChain in one sentence, how would you do so?
Ducking:
As the first consumer Layer to provide EVM development environment for developers on TON, DuckChain aims to bring billions of Telegram users from off-chain to on-chain, ensuring seamless compatibility between TON and ecosystems like EVM and BTC.
TechFlow: In a time when the threshold for chain issuance is becoming increasingly low, the competitive landscape of numerous projects makes people more concerned about what specific pain points this chain solves. As the first consumer Layer of the TON ecosystem, how was this unique market positioning determined? In a time when discussions about consumer applications are endless within the community, what kind of consumer Layer does DuckChain aim to build?
Ducking:
The core issues we want to solve can be summarized in the following three points:
Allowing developers to seamlessly enter Telegram and TON to develop consumer products.
By utilizing abstract accounts and chain abstraction features, Telegram users can more easily go on-chain, reducing the user's understanding of the chain and lowering the threshold for users to enter Web3.
Providing Telegram users with richer consumer products.
Therefore, a very clear concept is that DuckChain is born for consumers. We position ourselves as the next-generation Web3 consumer super platform prepared for billions of Telegram users. We hope that Telegram users can experience a rich array of consumer applications, from GameFi and SocialFi to various application-level products.
Correspondingly, our infrastructure is prepared for consumers: for developers, we hope they can more easily build consumer applications on our chain; for consumers, we hope they can seamlessly experience various consumer products on our chain, weakening the complex concepts of Web3.
TechFlow: Why did DuckChain choose TON? Do you believe that only TON can further promote DuckChain's vision of achieving a consumer Layer?
Ducking:
TON is the only ecosystem that possesses a solid technical foundation and a large user reserve. Its potential for integration with Telegram far exceeds that of other public chains, allowing us to directly reach billions of users, thus rapidly advancing the vision for a consumer Layer.
Therefore, although other chains also have their characteristics, TON's unique positioning is most aligned with DuckChain's mission.
At the same time, although the TON ecosystem is thriving at the moment, its ecosystem development is still in its early stages. The vast majority of Telegram users have not yet participated in the TON ecosystem, which also presents a huge opportunity and growth space for DuckChain's expansion.
TechFlow: It is undeniable that the TON ecosystem is one of the best-performing blockchain ecosystems this year, but it is also important to recognize that the TON ecosystem faces challenges such as complex development, high user thresholds, and isolated liquidity. In the face of these challenges, how will DuckChain leverage its advantages and address its disadvantages to advance its consumer Layer vision?
Ducking:
On one hand, DuckChain lowers the developer threshold by introducing an EVM development environment; on the other hand, we significantly reduce the difficulty for users to use the chain through chain abstraction technology.
In addition, I believe DuckChain's most unique advantage is that we present the complex Token concept of Web3 to users in the form of DuckChain Stars, allowing users to easily understand that DuckChain Stars are similar to Telegram Stars or functionally integrated point currency like QQ coins, thereby greatly reducing the initial learning cost for users regarding new concepts.
In terms of liquidity, DuckChain is committed to integrating the liquidity of the EVM and BTC ecosystems into TON to solve isolation issues and provide users with a seamless Web3 experience.
TechFlow: We have noticed that there are many technical stacks for one-click chain issuance. DuckChain has chosen to build based on the Arbitrum Orbit technical architecture, thereby bringing an EVM development framework to the TON ecosystem. What considerations led to this choice? What does it mean for developers? How will the collaboration empower the development of each ecosystem to achieve a win-win situation?
Ducking:
With the rising popularity of the TON ecosystem, many EVM developers have a demand to explore the TON ecosystem, but the unfamiliar development environment has become a barrier that deters them.
Arbitrum Orbit provides DuckChain with a highly optimized Rollup architecture and extensive developer support, ensuring that DuckChain's EVM environment is stable and efficient.
Through DuckChain, EVM developers can quickly develop on TON using their existing development experience while enjoying efficient technical support provided by Arbitrum. This will greatly reduce development costs, shorten the development cycle, and benefit from the significant traffic dividends from DuckChain and the TON ecosystem.
The collaboration between Duckchain and Arbitrum Orbit will not only bring a new TON user base to Arbitrum but also allow DuckChain to enhance its performance through its technology, attracting more developers to jointly expand the ecological influence.
TechFlow: Breaking the liquidity isolation problem of the TON ecosystem and further integrating the liquidity of the EVM ecosystem and even the Bitcoin ecosystem is another major issue that DuckChain is committed to solving. How is DuckChain achieving this amidst the increasingly prominent liquidity fragmentation problem in this cycle?
Ducking:
By creating cross-chain bridges and unified liquidity pools, DuckChain helps users achieve the free flow of assets between TON, EVM, and BTC.
At the same time, we have introduced a liquidity incentive mechanism to attract users and well-known project parties (such as PumpBTC, BedRock, Lorenzo, etc.) to inject funds into the ecosystem, fundamentally enhancing liquidity integration.
TechFlow: Over the past period, DuckChain's ecological movements have been frequent, continuously announcing partnerships with projects such as Nubit, Particle Network, Tomo Wallet, etc. We know that ecosystem construction is a crucial aspect of project development, and the gradual improvement of the ecological landscape will bring users a higher quality participation experience. Therefore, through this question, could you lead everyone into the full panorama of the DuckChain ecosystem, helping readers to gain a deeper understanding of the DuckChain ecological landscape?
Ducking:
DuckChain focuses on developer support, consumer applications, and ecological cooperation, committed to building an innovative and practical Web3 platform.
By providing an EVM development environment, DuckChain significantly lowers the threshold for developers, while also providing traffic support, professional guidance, and ecological funding to help developers quickly implement projects and achieve success.
In terms of consumer applications, DuckChain focuses on popular fields such as Meme, GameFi, SocialFi, and DeFi, providing users with diverse application scenarios and seamless interaction experiences.
In addition, DuckChain continuously exerts effort in ecological cooperation, collaborating with numerous well-known partners to jointly build key infrastructures such as decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, launch platforms, oracles, etc., to create a more solid ecological support for developers and users.
Achieving a million-user scale: Escaping the mundane, community participation can also be very interesting.
TechFlow: As an important channel for users to interact with Duck Planet, DuckChainBot has been deeply loved by the community since its launch due to its fun and unknown gameplay. Many community members even believe that the product design of DuckChainBot largely reflects DuckChain's community building philosophy. How do you view this perspective? What kind of construction philosophy will DuckChain practice in terms of community culture?
Ducking:
The gameplay of DuckChainBot indeed fully reflects our 'community-centric' operational philosophy.
In terms of design style, DuckChainBot differs from most 'serious' public chains by engaging our users with a fun and cute duck image, achieving very good results.
Additionally, we are very proactive in building partnerships with other well-known projects, providing our partner projects and rewards to users through various fun activities, which is also a concrete manifestation of our high regard for community demands.
Under this operational philosophy, DuckChain has gradually built a community culture that is fun, innovative, and open, continuously encouraging users to enter the Web3 world in a relaxed and entertaining way, ultimately forming the currently highly active ecosystem.
TechFlow: According to previous data, DuckChain's test net has over 1 million paid users, Miniapp daily active users exceed 2 million, and total users surpass 10 million. In a time when most users are tired of completing tasks and claiming rewards, what do you think is the reason DuckChain can achieve such remarkable results during the test net phase?
Ducking:
The success of DuckChain's test net stems from its leading core philosophy and unique advantages.
By addressing the key pain points of developers and users, DuckChain provides an efficient and friendly EVM development framework, designs that lower the threshold for going on-chain, and strong infrastructure support.
In addition, TON's unique Telegram traffic reserve gives DuckChain broader exposure and participation, while DuckChain's fun and low-threshold interactive gameplay further attracts a large number of users to participate. Moreover, the active community culture and incentive mechanisms enhance user enthusiasm. All of this together lays the foundation for the excellent performance of DuckChain's test net.
TechFlow: On the occasion of the mainnet's official launch, could you introduce to us how ordinary users can more efficiently participate in the DuckChain ecosystem?
Ducking:
Our mainnet has just launched, and we have brought users an Eggs Season main activity, innovatively proposing the concept of ISO (Initial Star Offering). Users only need to convert their Telegram Stars into DuckChain Stars with one click to participate on-chain using DuckChain Stars.
Of course, in addition to our DuckChainBot, we will regularly launch some excellent and fun ecological projects for users to experience, so please pay attention to our social media announcements.
TechFlow: Finally, developers are the core figures in ecosystem construction. With the mainnet officially launched, it is also a time of great construction for the ecosystem. What types of projects will be more favored by DuckChain as developers? Additionally, what assistance can participants in DuckChain construction receive?
Ducking:
DuckChain will prioritize supporting applications with the potential to break out of their circles, truly bringing Web2 users into Web3. The specific types include but are not limited to Meme, GameFi, SocialFi, and innovative DeFi projects.
We hope the project parties can fully unleash their creativity to provide users with a unique and easy-to-participate experience.
Developers participating in the construction will receive comprehensive support, including ecological rewards, project consulting, community promotion covering over 10M users, and funding support from top investment institutions.
