Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow
The crypto market is experiencing an unprecedented 'zoo' cycle, with various animal-themed projects emerging one after another.
In the gaming field, the cat (Catizen) and mouse (Hamster) battle is leading the charge in profit-making trends;
In the meme market, hippos, squirrels, spider monkeys, and eagles took turns to push this speculative and absurdly comedic track to new heights;
Among the public chain ecosystems this year, besides the uniquely cultural community of Monad, Berachain, and others, the consumer Layer DuckChain, supported by the magic of TON + Arbitrum, is also worth looking forward to.
On November 18, DuckChain announced the official launch of the mainnet and introduced the innovative concept of ISO, allowing users to convert Telegram Stars into on-chain Stars and participate in on-chain interactions, further lowering the cognitive and participatory thresholds for users. Within less than a week of its launch, DuckChain achieved the impressive milestone of over 1 million active wallets for 'recharging Stars', with on-chain transaction volume exceeding 5 million by the time of this writing.
On this important milestone, we are fortunate to have a deep dialogue with DuckChain founder Ducking.
In terms of current public chain competition, finding the right track and good development is equally important. For those who are new to DuckChain, it seems that this project carries many labels: the first EVM-compatible consumer Layer in the TON ecosystem, Arbitrum support, over 1 million paid users on the testnet, total users exceeding 10 million...
Although it may seem dazzling, Ducking, who has rich investment analysis and quant experience, is very adept at summarizing the essence of issues in simple terms:
As the first consumer Layer to provide developers with an EVM development environment on TON, DuckChain aims to bring billions of Telegram users from off-chain to on-chain, enabling seamless compatibility between TON and ecosystems like EVM and BTC.
When discussing the question of 'what kind of applications are more likely to gain favor from DuckChain,' Ducking candidly stated:
DuckChain will prioritize supporting applications with the potential to break out, genuinely bringing Web2 users into Web3 and providing them with diverse application scenarios and seamless interaction experiences. Specific types include but are not limited to Meme, GameFi, SocialFi, and innovative DeFi projects.
In this issue, let's follow Ducking's sharing to explore the unique 'Consumer Layer' of DuckChain and the community culture led by this little yellow duck wearing sunglasses that has attracted millions of users.
Getting to know the founder Ducking: firmly believing that TG is the traffic entrance for Web3 mass adoption.
TechFlow: I'm glad to have the opportunity for a deep exchange with you. First, please introduce yourself (you can share some past educational experiences, your experiences in Crypto, entrepreneurship, and the reasons for founding DuckChain, etc.).
Ducking:
Hello everyone, I am Ducking, the founder of DuckChain, and I am very pleased to have this opportunity for in-depth communication with you.
I went all-in on the Crypto industry in 2019, prior to which I worked as an investment analyst and quant in a Web2 investment company and earned a master's degree in business at the University of Cambridge. After learning about Crypto, I decided to drop out.
In the Crypto space, my experience mainly ranges from exchanges to VC and then to quantitative funds. In 2021, I established a Studio focused on innovative R&D of Crypto products, providing product support for many projects launched on Binance and Coinbase.
Last September, I started paying attention to the TON and Telegram ecosystems. 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 during this time that our team planned to develop some innovative products on TON. In 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. This inspired me to improve the developer environment of TON.
In April this year, the Tap to Earn Game gained popularity on TON, and we initially felt the huge traffic dividend from Telegram, a flow that has not been seen in nearly a decade of Crypto development. We are more certain about the significance of Telegram as an ecological traffic entry point.
However, with the emergence of some highly popular projects, people have also discovered the shortcomings of the underlying technical infrastructure of the TON chain, as well as the lack of an active developer ecosystem, fundamentally because the FunC language of TON 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 led us to conceive the idea of bringing the EVM development environment and developers into the TON ecosystem. If developers can use Solidity language to develop on TON, we believe this will usher in the next wave for TON.
TG's billion-user reserve + EVM's strong infrastructure + comprehensive liquidity integration = DuckChain.
TechFlow: In many people's eyes, DuckChain carries many impressive labels, such as the first consumer Layer in the TON ecosystem, the first EVM-compatible L2 in 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 it?
Ducking:
As the first consumer Layer to provide developers with an EVM development environment on TON, DuckChain aims to bring billions of Telegram users from off-chain to on-chain, enabling seamless compatibility between TON and ecosystems like EVM and BTC.
TechFlow: As the barriers to chain issuance become lower and the competitive landscape intensifies, people are more concerned about what specific pain points this chain addresses. As the first consumer Layer in the TON ecosystem, how was this unique market positioning determined? In light of the ongoing discussions in the community about consumer applications, what kind of consumer Layer does DuckChain aim to build?
Ducking:
The core problems we aim to solve can be summarized in three points:
Enabling developers to enter Telegram and TON for consumer product development more seamlessly.
By abstracting accounts and chain abstraction functions, Telegram users can more easily go on-chain, weakening their understanding of the chain and lowering the barrier to entering 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 to offer Telegram users a rich experience 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, thereby mitigating the complex concepts of Web3.
TechFlow: Why did DuckChain choose TON? Do you think only TON can further promote DuckChain to realize its vision of a consumer Layer?
Ducking:
TON is the only ecosystem that possesses both a solid technical foundation and a vast 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 of a consumer Layer.
Therefore, although other chains have their characteristics, TON's unique positioning aligns best with DuckChain's mission.
At the same time, although the TON ecosystem is thriving, its ecological development is still in the early stages. The vast majority of Telegram users have not yet participated in the TON ecosystem, which also presents DuckChain with significant opportunities and growth space for expansion.
TechFlow: It is undeniable that the TON ecosystem is one of the best-performing blockchain ecosystems this year, but it is also essential to note that the TON ecosystem faces challenges such as development complexity, high user thresholds, and isolated ecological liquidity. How will DuckChain leverage its strengths and address its weaknesses to advance its vision of a consumer Layer in the face of these challenges?
Ducking:
On one hand, DuckChain lowers the development threshold for developers by introducing the EVM development environment; on the other hand, we greatly reduce user difficulties in using the chain through chain abstraction technology.
In addition, I believe DuckChain's most unique advantage lies in presenting the complex Web3 token concepts to users in the form of DuckChain Stars, making it easy for users to understand that DuckChain Stars are similar to Telegram Stars or functionally similar to Q coins, thereby significantly reducing the initial learning costs for users regarding new concepts.
In terms of liquidity, DuckChain is committed to integrating EVM and BTC ecosystem liquidity into TON to solve isolation issues and provide users with a seamless Web3 experience.
TechFlow: We noticed that there are many technology stacks for one-click chain issuance. DuckChain chose to build on the Arbitrum Orbit technology architecture, thus bringing an EVM development framework to the TON ecosystem. What considerations led to this choice? What does this mean for developers? How will the cooperation between both parties empower their respective ecological development to achieve a win-win situation?
Ducking:
With the rising popularity of the TON ecosystem, many EVM developers have the need to explore the TON ecosystem, but the unfamiliar development environment has become a barrier that hinders 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 the efficient technical support provided by Arbitrum. This will significantly reduce development costs, shorten development cycles, and enjoy the substantial traffic dividend 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 enhance DuckChain's performance through its technology, attracting more developers to jointly expand ecological influence.
TechFlow: Breaking the liquidity isolation problem of the TON ecosystem and further integrating liquidity from the EVM ecosystem and even the Bitcoin ecosystem is another major issue DuckChain is committed to solving. How has DuckChain managed to achieve this in the context of increasingly prominent liquidity fragmentation issues?
Ducking:
By building cross-chain bridges and unified liquidity pools, DuckChain helps users achieve free flow of assets between TON, EVM, and BTC.
At the same time, we actively introduced liquidity incentive mechanisms to attract users and some well-known project parties (such as PumpBTC, BedRock, Lorenzo, etc.) to inject funds into the ecosystem, fundamentally enhancing liquidity integration.
TechFlow: Recently, DuckChain has been very active, announcing collaborations with projects such as Nubit, Particle Network, and Tomo Wallet. We know that ecological construction is a crucial part of project development, and the increasingly complete ecological map will bring a better participation experience for users. Therefore, could you lead everyone into the panoramic view of the DuckChain ecology and help readers gain a deeper understanding of the DuckChain ecological map?
Ducking:
DuckChain focuses on developer support, consumer applications, and ecological cooperation, aiming to create a Web3 platform that is both innovative and practical.
By providing an EVM development environment, DuckChain significantly lowers the development threshold for developers, while also providing traffic support, professional guidance, and ecological funding to help developers quickly realize their projects and achieve success.
In terms of consumer applications, DuckChain focuses on popular areas such as Meme, GameFi, SocialFi, and DeFi, providing users with diverse application scenarios and seamless interaction experiences.
Moreover, DuckChain continues to make efforts in ecological cooperation, collaborating with many well-known partners to build key infrastructure such as decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, launch platforms, oracles, etc., to create a more solid ecological support for developers and users.
Capturing a user base of one million: escaping the monotony, community participation can also be very interesting.
TechFlow: As an important channel for users to interact with Duck Planet, DuckChainBot has been well-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 truly reflects our 'community-centric' operational philosophy.
In terms of design style, DuckChainBot distinguishes itself from most 'serious' public chains, using a fun and cute duck image to connect with our users, achieving very good results.
Additionally, we are very proactive in building partnerships with other well-known projects, offering our partner projects and rewards to users through various fun activities, which is also one of the concrete expressions of our high regard for community demands.
Under this operational concept, 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 enjoyable manner, ultimately forming the highly active ecology we see today.
TechFlow: According to previous data, DuckChain's testnet paid users exceeded 1 million, with Miniapp daily active users surpassing 2 million, and total users exceeding 10 million. In a time when most users are fatigued with tasks and rewards, what do you think are the reasons why DuckChain could achieve such impressive results during the testnet phase?
Ducking:
The success of DuckChain's testnet stems from its leading core philosophy and unique advantages.
By addressing the key pain points of developers and users, DuckChain provides an efficient and user-friendly EVM development framework, a design that lowers the barriers to going on-chain, and strong infrastructure support.
Furthermore, the unique Telegram traffic reserve of TON grants DuckChain broader exposure and participation, while DuckChain's fun and low-threshold interactive gameplay further attracts a large number of users. In addition, the active community culture and incentive mechanisms enhance user enthusiasm. All these factors collectively lay the foundation for the excellent performance of DuckChain's testnet.
TechFlow: At the official launch of the mainnet, could you introduce to us how ordinary users can participate more effectively in the DuckChain ecology?
Ducking:
Our mainnet has just launched, and we have brought users an Eggs Season mainline event, and innovatively proposed the ISO concept (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 also periodically launch some excellent and fun ecological projects for users to experience, and we invite everyone to pay attention to our social media announcements.
TechFlow: Finally, developers are the core figures in ecological construction. With the mainnet officially launched, what type of projects can developers build to gain favor from DuckChain? Additionally, what support will participants in DuckChain construction receive?
Ducking:
DuckChain will prioritize supporting applications with the potential to break out, genuinely bringing Web2 users into Web3. The specific types include but are not limited to Meme, GameFi, SocialFi, and innovative DeFi projects.
We hope project parties can fully unleash their creativity to provide users with unique and easy-to-participate experiences.
Developers who participate in construction will receive comprehensive support, including ecological rewards, project consulting, community promotion covering over 10 million users, and funding support from top investment institutions.
