Interview: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
Guest: Eric, CMO of UXLINK
Although the development of the Web3 social track has experienced ups and downs in 2024, there are still projects such as UXLINK and Farcaster that continue to promote innovation in decentralized social platforms and infrastructure.
Founded in 2023, UXLINK, a Web3 social platform and infrastructure, has developed particularly rapidly in 2024. In its latest official full-year review, UXLINK has achieved good results in global expansion, user growth, governance token ecosystem empowerment, and other aspects:
In terms of innovation, we pioneered the industry's first social growth layer, created the LinkToEarn social model for Telegram ecosystem, and launched the first decentralized group mechanism UX Group.
In terms of growth, the number of registered users has surpassed 40 million, the number of ecosystem partners has exceeded 300, and accumulated profits have reached 10 million dollars.
The governance token $UXLINK has performed outstandingly. Since its inception, its market value, FDV, and transaction volume have all risen significantly, with current daily trading volume exceeding 250 million dollars, ranking among the top 50 crypto assets (CMC data) and first place in the Web3 social category.
ChainCatcher recently had a dialogue with UXLINK's CMO Eric regarding breakthroughs, achievements, challenges, and new year planning for 2024. Just like a coin has two sides, the achievements UXLINK has made are backed by multiple challenges faced by the team. However, Eric stated that regardless of how the market environment changes in 2024, UXLINK will firmly grasp the point of real user growth, saying, 'Any meaningful Dapp construction must serve C-end users. Web3 and Crypto cannot always play financial games; they need to genuinely benefit the public for the industry to explode.'
In addition, regarding plans for the new year, Eric revealed that to achieve the goal of 100 million users, UXLINK will still be based on Telegram in 2025 and will continue to invest and grow on LINE. By continuously enhancing the Web3 user experience, such as innovative features like One Account One Gas, we aim to attract new users. In terms of user incentives, UXLINK will not only have the upcoming second season airdrop but also third and fourth seasons to fully ensure community benefits.
UXLINK 2024 Keywords: Creation and Breakthrough
ChainCatcher: I believe that 2024 will be a crucial year for UXLINK, achieving good results in various dimensions such as user growth, technology development, influence building, and financing. If you were to summarize UXLINK in 2024 with a few keywords, what would they be?
Eric: I think two keywords might summarize UXLINK's development in 2024—Creation and Breakthrough.
"Creation" represents UXLINK's innovative spirit. We pioneered acquaintance social networking in Web3, building products early on relying on Telegram rather than depending on apps, websites, or Twitter. Additionally, we are the first Web3 social platform to enter LINE, as well as the industry's first layer focused on social growth—UXLINK Social Growth Layer.
"Breakthrough" represents the achievements UXLINK has made in business. In 2024, our registered user count surpassed 30 million, with over 2 million new users on LINE in just over a month, over 300 ecosystem partners, and the price, transaction volume, trading activity of $UXLINK, and its CMC global heat ranking keep hitting new highs.
ChainCatcher: As of December 2024, the number of UXLINK users worldwide has exceeded 38 million. Can you summarize UXLINK's strategy for global market expansion and the achievements in different regions?
Eric: From a regional perspective, we treat Japan and South Korea as our home market and are focusing on expanding users in Asia and Europe.
In terms of channels, Telegram is still our base, while LINE will be our focus for the whole of 2025. TikTok will also be an important channel for marketing in the future.
Currently, user distribution is still primarily in Asia, followed by Europe. In terms of population, a large proportion comes from several populous Southeast Asian countries, while in terms of user contribution (such as Trade, Stake dimensions), Korea is the highest.
ChainCatcher: Speaking of expansion, I would like to ask you to share your experiences, with the Korean market as an example. Recently, UXLINK's token performance has been very bright, which is also inseparable from UXLINK's layout in South Korea, Japan, and other regions. How did UXLINK expand its social map to social software like LINE and Kakao Talk? How did you establish and operate local communities?
Eric: Recently, many friends have asked me how to enter the Korean market, probably because our performance on Upbit has been good. In fact, there isn't much trick; one is time, the second is trust, and the third is returns.
In terms of time, we have been operating in the Korean market for over a year and a half. Early on, we found Korean users participating in our product interactions; they were also 'grabbing rewards.' We opened a Korean channel early and have maintained long-term cooperation with several Korean airdrop communities.
From the perspective of trust, after long-term cooperation and the first season airdrop, we have established a good reputation among Korean KOLs and users. They recognize UXLINK's narrative; all roadmaps are being fulfilled, and the commitments in the white paper have not changed. As for returns, they are the inevitable result of accumulating time and trust. When I communicated with many Korean communities, they even said, 'We love UXLINK.' Indeed, early value judgments have received high recognition from the market; who wouldn't be happy?
The entire Asian market has its own characteristics. South Korea has a high crypto penetration rate, and the offline end is still strong. Recently, we have also been rhythmically placing some ground advertisements in Seoul and Busan, as the South Korean market is a thick snow. We will continue to roll the snowball and strive to build UXLINK into Korea's national cryptocurrency. Of course, there is still a long way to go.
Currently, we have launched the UXLINK MiniApp on LINE, primarily targeting the Japanese market, while Korea basically does not use LINE. Kakao Talk currently does not support product integration; mainly, we are doing marketing placements, and the results are still good.
ChainCatcher: Many people mention that the UXLINK team has strong learning abilities and is very good at thinking about underlying logic (from a product perspective) when they come into contact with your team. What specific aspects do you think these evaluations are reflected in? What efforts have been made in team building in 2024?
Eric: This evaluation is too high. We believe that the Web3 teams have strong learning abilities. If we talk about specific performances, we were prepared to take an open approach from the very beginning in the underlying product design.
We are doing Web3 social networking, and from the beginning, we did not position ourselves for our own growth. Our protocol design, underlying architecture, etc., are all prepared to support other developers in the industry in the future. In other words, UXLINK planned to create Web3 social infrastructure from the start, rather than just being a SocialFi project aiming for user numbers and other data performance.
In addition, the most significant change in 2024 is that the technical team has doubled in size. We are also continuously enhancing the team's technical capabilities. Our headquarters is in Singapore, and our members are distributed across more than a dozen countries, making our operations quite internationalized.
Challenges and Achievements of UXLINK in 2024
ChainCatcher: What are the key challenges the UXLINK team faces in 2024, and how have you overcome them?
Eric: The first challenge was TGE; the market environment was not good at that time. We withstood the pressure and launched, with great support from the community. Many users chose to claim airdrops and immediately staked, and they have received substantial returns since then.
The second challenge was getting on Upbit, which Korean users had been looking forward to for a long time, but we actually didn't know whether we could get on or when. But thanks to the support from the community, it naturally happened, and we got on.
The third challenge is the large fluctuations in the secondary market, but the team remains unaffected. We fully listen to the opinions of the community and partners, and, in combination with industry development, are determined to continue down the path of UXLINK's social infrastructure and Social Growth Layer, One Account & One Gas.
ChainCatcher: The success and development of a project are closely related to the current market situation and trends. What reflections and reviews do you have on UXLINK's operational rhythm and product rhythm in 2024?
Eric: We actually don't chase trends. You can see that we missed out on AI Agents, MEME, RWA, and others. But we focus on a few key points: 1. Any Web3 project needs real users and genuine growth; 2. Any meaningful Dapp construction must serve C-end users; 3. The current Web3 experience cannot let a billion Web3 users in; 4. Web3 and Crypto cannot always play financial games; they need to truly benefit the public for the industry to explode.
UXLINK is willing to provide support for large-scale Web3 applications in a socialized manner, just as Social Media supported the great development of the industry during the Web2 era.
ChainCatcher: Could you talk about UXLINK's efforts in building an ecosystem and its cooperation with other projects?
Eric: We have over 300 ecosystem partners; it really hasn't been easy. The projects we have communicated with may be nearly 1,000. The progress is good; we are collaborating with partners on all levels, including social media growth, on-chain interaction, social protocol output, and joint development.
For example, our joint activity with Binance Wallet has achieved very good results. Through a social growth approach, utilizing the UXLINK social protocol, it has brought in hundreds of thousands of new users, 95% of whom came from users proactively linking to earn.
Airdrop 2049 is a project incubated by the UXLINK community. In just a few months, it has attracted over 1 million users and over 100 high-quality Web3 projects, airdropping tokens worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the project has achieved real and rapid growth. Users participated in the co-construction of different projects and received rewards, perfectly illustrating the redefinition of production relations in Web3. Its tokens have also listed on Gate and Lbank exchanges.
Multiple Network fully adopts UXLINK's social infrastructure protocol and product model, establishing its own growth mechanism and ecosystem, achieving rapid growth within just two months of launch. It is currently planned for a global TGE in the first quarter of 2025.
ChainCatcher: UXLINK is praised as the 'pioneer of Web3 acquaintance social networking.' What major technical innovations does the team plan for the product in 2024?
Eric: 'Web3 acquaintance social networking' is indeed an innovation brought by UXLINK to the industry. We believe that acquaintance social networking, based on trust, is the primary form of real social networking. Moreover, acquaintance social networking has a natural network effect, making it easier to transition from one-to-one to many-to-many and group forms, thus forming a multi-dimensional social relationship network. UXLINK's core strategy is to construct a social network based on acquaintance relationships. We relied on the Telegram ecosystem early on, utilizing scenarios and social economic models such as Link To Earn and UX Group, enabling users to convert social relationships into Web3 assets.
This year's technical focus is to develop the Social Growth Layer together with partners. This will be the first layer or chain in the industry focused on social growth, accelerating Web3 development by providing comprehensive growth tools (including chain abstraction, unified accounts, and rich data integration). One of its features is 'One Account One Gas,' meaning users only need one social account for seamless interaction without worrying about the blockchain or wallet being used.
How to achieve the goal of '100 million users'?
ChainCatcher: UXLINK officially stated in the blog that '2025 will be a great year for UXLINK.' According to the roadmap, you plan to serve 100 million users in 2025, which is a very challenging number. What strategies will you adopt to further expand your user base to achieve this goal? How will you continue to incentivize users?
Eric: Currently, the number of users on LINE has exceeded 2 million, and we will continue to invest and grow on LINE in 2025. Our users on social media platforms like Telegram and Twitter are still continuously growing. Through a good Web3 experience like One Account One Gas, we will attract more users to make UXLINK their first stop and core usage scenario for entering the Web3 world, connecting users and Dapps.
The incentive mechanism remains $UXLINK, and the incentive method is still community co-construction. Users who contribute to us can receive our tokens. Currently, we are conducting the second season airdrop, and there will be third and fourth seasons in 2025 to fully ensure community benefits.
ChainCatcher: The witch studio of the crypto industry has become quite industrialized. Does UXLINK have a continuous plan to counter witches? How can the authenticity of user data be guaranteed?
Eric: We continue to counter witches; we are not afraid to offend anyone. We have our own set of mechanisms and also adopt good solutions from our market partners. We implemented anti-witch measures in the first season airdrop, and we will do so in the second season as well. To be honest, if we hadn't countered witches, our user count might have already approached a hundred million, as we directly screened out a large number of wallet addresses or various fake accounts registering in our system.
ChainCatcher: The Social Growth Layer testnet and mainnet will be launched in 2025. Please provide a detailed introduction to UXLINK's product and service expansion plans.
Eric: We plan to launch the UXLINK Social Growth Layer testnet in 2025. Currently, we are preparing for the testnet with several partners. One Account, One Gas has already entered the demo stage, and we will continue testing to support more social accounts and more chains. Since everything is still in the testing phase, there isn't much information we can disclose. We will gradually update the community and the public as testing progresses.
ChainCatcher: What new trends do you think will emerge in the Web3 social field in 2025? How will UXLINK adjust its positioning to adapt to these changes?
Eric: We believe that the social field can be divided into two categories: one is infrastructure, like UXLINK and Farcaster, and the other relies on user social relationships to build Dapps. From a trend perspective, the combination of AI and social is worth looking forward to; groups within social networking are actually an important scenario, but so far there hasn't been a good Web3 approach to explore it. More interesting and meaningful applications will emerge through social networking, genuinely serving user needs while allowing users to participate in co-construction and assetize social relationships.
