Author: TechFlow
In this slightly special bull market cycle, what kind of market are users facing?
It's obvious: too much infrastructure and too few applications.
Infrastructure construction is like building a shopping mall. No matter how complete the hardware is, if the investment promotion (application) does not capture the user's interest, it will still be deserted.
The popularity of TON ecosystem games this summer seems to be a counterattack by users against the “grand narrative”: no matter how the cycle changes, better participation and more intuitive benefits are still the core demands of users.
However, in the current era of fragmented attention, being seen by more people is a rare ability in itself: the simple gameplay of TON mini-games does not mean that the operating logic behind them is simple. As the total number of users of TON ecological casual game BANANA exceeded 10 million and DAU (daily active users) exceeded 1.1 million, we also noticed the hero behind it: CARV.
It is understood that BANANA has successfully attracted a large number of seed users through precise advertising and KOL promotion on the CARV platform, and achieved natural growth through recommendation mechanisms and UGC/sharing activities. Currently, more than 90% of users come from natural growth channels, and the total number of accounts associated with CARV ID exceeds 1.3 million.
Such a conversion increase is undoubtedly very attractive and is enough to encourage more people to learn more about CARV:
As a modular identity data layer dedicated to games and AI services, CARV, on the one hand, mobilizes user participation by promoting the return of data sovereignty to users, data privacy protection, data tokenization and value release; on the other hand, it uses data as a bridge to form an efficient match between users and games and AI products, bringing data benefits to users while promoting the development and innovation of games and AI.
In fact, by distributing benefits to users in real money, CARV has attracted widespread participation due to its innovation in data value distribution. Success stories such as BANANA are being staged one after another: currently, there are more than 900 CARV ecological cooperation projects, and more than one million users have won generous rewards by sharing data, participating in social activities, game live broadcasts, AMA meetings, Beta testing, etc. At the same time, the project obtains high-quality data and traffic to develop healthily.
How is this achieved? Is this model sustainable? With the TGE coming up, is now a good time to participate in CARV? How can one participate?
This article aims to take a closer look at CARV and explore the operating logic and driving factors behind its outstanding achievements.
A big name: $50 million in financing, 900+ ecosystem partners, and nearly 10 million users
Let’s first look at CARV’s fundamentals.
First of all, the financing performance. We can see that CARV's financing performance is very impressive, whether in terms of amount or lineup.
According to the information currently disclosed, CARV has completed multiple rounds of financing, attracting a total of over 50 million US dollars in financing. This amount can be considered large no matter which track of Web3 it is placed in.
In addition to the amount, CARV's financing lineup is even more valuable: it not only attracted the support of a number of crypto VCs including Tribe Capital, IOSG, ConsenSys (Metamask), and HashKey Capital, but also won the favor of Web2 giants such as Alibaba. In addition, we can notice that among the participating investors, we can also see many gaming giants, such as doublejump.tokyo (the developer of Japan's largest chain Oasys), Animoca Brands, MarbleX (NetMable), IntellaX, The Sandbox, etc., further demonstrating the recognition of CARV in the gaming field.
It is worth mentioning that CARV also attracted the lead investment from Vertex Ventures, a venture capital company under Temasek. As an investment company wholly owned by the Singapore Ministry of Finance, Temasek's investment in CARV also demonstrates the Singapore government's attention to the project to a certain extent.
Overall, CARV's narrative logic and future development have been recognized by a number of institutions, and stronger funding/resource support has also provided CARV with a more solid foundation for continued positive development in the future.
In addition to institutions, the more important evaluation dimension comes from the ecosystem. In this regard, we have also seen CARV's amazing coverage in Web3 games and AI sectors.
According to official statistics, there are currently more than 900 games and AI projects cooperating with the CARV ecosystem, which not only surpasses many popular new public chains in terms of richness (according to SolanaProject data, there are currently 405 projects in the Solana ecosystem), but also covers a number of well-known Web2/Web3 companies in terms of the quality of the cooperative projects.
In the game sector, according to statistics, CARV has carried out in-depth cooperation with hundreds of the world's top game studios, including but not limited to MarbleX, a blockchain subsidiary of Netmarble, a Korean mobile game developer, IntellaX, a Korean Web3 mobile game developer, and blockchain games Illuvium, Apeiron, Splinterlands, Genopets, Delysium, Drawshop Kingdom, Big Time, Ultiverse, etc.
In the AI sector, in addition to Cara, the generative AI assistant launched by CARV itself, the AI projects in the CARV ecosystem are also star-studded. We can not only see the cooperation with Google AI, but also crypto-native projects such as Aethir, Inferium AI, UneMeta, and Coinbase Crypto AI SDK. As a data identity middle layer, CARV will explore a new era of building data value with AI projects in the ecosystem.
At a time when Web3 is struggling to attract incremental users, games and AI, as two tracks that are closer to users, are enough to attract customers. The wide range of ecological options makes CARV show strong competitiveness comparable to the scale of traditional Web2 Internet products.
On the one hand, CARV has a huge user base:
According to official statistics, CARV provides services to 10 million registered players. As a multi-chain identity solution launched by CARV that aggregates Web2 and Web3, the number of CARV ID minted on opBNB exceeds 3.1 million. The total number of users of the CARV protocol is 3.3 million. Another flagship product built on the CARV protocol, CARV Play, has 2.5 million users and 1.3 million mobile App downloads.
On the other hand, CARV ecosystem users have shown unusual activity:
According to statistics, CARV's total on-chain transaction volume on opBNB, Ronin, Linea and more than 40 chains reached 240 million. The impressive data has pushed CARV Play to firmly sit on the position of "currently the largest Web3 game distribution and social platform."
Year-to-date, CARV has generated $6 million in revenue from CARV ID minting and .play name services on opBNB, as well as revenue from games that integrate CARV Play, Infinite Play, CARV, and BANANA Minigames.
In the node public sale held in June this year, CARV sold 38,000 nodes in a very short period of time, and finally ended perfectly with a total value of more than US$36 million.
In addition, in the recent airdrop event jointly organized by CARV and Binance Web3 Wallet, more than 500,000 users participated in the event within 48 hours of its launch, and ultimately attracted a total of more than 1.4 million users to actively participate.
It can be seen that CARV has achieved remarkable results whether from the institutional side, application side or user side.
Based on the achievements, let us work backwards to find the reasons. Next, let us explore the driving force behind CARV's outstanding performance through dimensions such as the project track, project narrative logic, and project specific implementation path.
Harvard Elite Entrepreneurship: Focusing on Games and AI, Innovating Data Value Distribution
Web3 often says: The essence of investment is investing in people.
The same is true for CARV. Behind the impressive financing, CARV's strong team also plays an important role.
CARV co-founder and COO Victor Y. studied at Harvard Business School in the United States and worked at McKinsey. He is also a serial entrepreneur. He founded a company that was acquired by a Fortune 500 company within two years. He has extensive experience in venture capital, AI, consumption, hard technology, and encryption.
CARV CTO has extensive experience in the encryption field. In 2017, he worked on the blockchain video live broadcast product LINO (later acquired by TRON), and was also responsible for development work in the Cosmos project. He then joined Coinbase to be responsible for private key work and was deeply involved in the research and development and implementation of L2 Base.
CARV CGO is mainly responsible for growth and operations. He has rich operational experience and resource accumulation in the gaming field. He has worked in well-known game companies such as Tencent Games, Garena Games, and Electronic Arts, in charge of core business segments. The download volume of 3A and small games he operates has exceeded 1 billion.
The birth of CARV is inseparable from the lack of data ownership and data value in the era of data explosion.
According to the Internet Data Center, the global data volume will reach 175 ZB in 2025. As the Internet penetrates more life scenarios, people's behaviors are recorded in the form of data, and nearly 90% of the world's data is generated by independent individuals.
In the flood of information, users generate data, and users should be the owners and beneficiaries of the data. However, as the Internet penetrates more life scenarios, people's behaviors are recorded in the form of data. Centralized companies control massive amounts of user data and make a lot of money from it. The real data creators not only suffer from privacy leaks, but also cannot benefit from their own data.
In 2021, when Victor was still studying at Harvard Business School, he keenly captured this pain point and began to work on building a set of solutions. On the one hand, it promoted the return of data sovereignty to users, and on the other hand, it helped users say "no" to a world of surveillance and infringement, and achieved data sharing under the premise of privacy protection, and obtained the value generated by data in circulation.
This idea was quickly responded to by many early core members including the CTO and CGO, and the prototype of CARV began to take shape.
In the process of mining the value of data, CARV once again discovered the huge demand for data in games and AI.
On the one hand, data is like the lifeline for the rapid development of games and AI. In the game industry, data analysis of player behavior can greatly improve the quality of games and user experience. In the field of AI, data is the basis for training and optimizing AI models.
On the other hand, the high demand for data in games and AI also gives data greater value. As games and AI become more mature, the demand for data in these two fields is also growing. This data-driven model further makes data a highly valuable asset.
After understanding the mutual needs and mutual achievements between data, games, and AI, CARV's solution to return to data sovereignty and innovate the way data value is distributed has become clearer, namely:
As an innovative data layer solution, CARV is committed to building an efficient matching platform between games, AI applications and users:
For users: CARV gives users full control over their personal data, allowing them to decide how their data is used and shared while protecting their privacy, and to gain economic benefits through data sharing and trading. User data is no longer a passive resource, but an asset that can be actively managed, from which users can gain tangible returns.
For applications such as games and AI: CARV provides a way to obtain high-quality data. Developers can access real data authorized by users, which not only helps applications better understand user needs, but also achieves accurate market positioning and user reach, thereby promoting the healthy and sustainable development of applications.
Since then, a safe, transparent and efficient data ecosystem has gradually unfolded.
Now that a beautiful blueprint has been drawn, how does CARV turn the ideal into reality?
CARV: A universal modular identity data layer focused on games and AI
Specifically, CARV is building a universal modular identity and data layer for games, AI, and more. In order to achieve data self-sovereignty for large-scale users and empower game projects and AI development through data intelligence, CARV has three main pillars to promote a virtuous cycle of users and data.
CARV Protocol: A Modular Identity and Data Layer
CARV application: an ecological flagship product built on the CARV protocol.
CARV Labs: Achieving ecosystem prosperity through incentives, further driving a virtuous cycle of user and data growth.
As a modular identity and data layer (IDL), the CARV protocol adopts a modular design. Through five modules, including the identity layer, storage layer, computing and training layer, execution layer, and verification layer, it completes processes such as data verification, identity authentication, storage, processing, model training, and value distribution, providing underlying support for the entire CARV ecosystem.
The identity layer is the starting point of the CARV protocol and is responsible for the verification and authentication of user identities.
By supporting Web2 social login, automatic creation of AA wallets and other functions, CARV further lowers the user threshold and creates a smoother and more seamless ecosystem entry experience for users.
After joining the CARV ecosystem, users will be guided to create an on-chain identity CARV ID: It is worth mentioning that CARV ID is designed using ERC-7231, a standard proposed by the CARV team and approved by the Ethereum Foundation. Its outstanding advantages are verifiability, multi-bit aggregation, and composability. It supports multiple Web2 platforms and more than 40 Web3 networks. Users' ownership, role behavior, social relationships, past experiences, etc. can all be authorized, verified, and generated into digital identities and credentials. This design realizes the aggregation of Web2 multi-platform and Web3 multi-chain data, allowing users to switch seamlessly between different platforms, which can further improve the liquidity and efficiency of data use.
The storage layer is responsible for aggregating and storing user data. After the identity layer completes data verification, the data will be aggregated and visible only to the user. CARV supports a variety of data storage solutions to ensure cost control, data security, and accessibility of data storage.
The computation and training layer is responsible for ensuring that user data is processed securely using privacy-enhancing technologies. In CARV, data processing is handled by a decentralized cluster of TEE nodes, and the results are then published on the blockchain with TEE proofs, timestamps, and random numbers to prevent double-checking.
The verification layer is responsible for verifying the results and includes more than 40,000 on-chain decentralized community nodes to ensure that user data is run in a decentralized manner that meets user expectations and ensures privacy.
The execution layer ensures that all data transactions are securely recorded and verifiable on the blockchain, allowing participants to share rewards in a decentralized and transparent manner.
The CARV protocol is designed to facilitate data exchange and value distribution in the gaming and AI fields. After the CARV token TGE, the Identity and Data Layer (IDL) will continue to be built, including a new consensus layer and data storage layer, and decentralized nodes on the chain as decentralized sorters and storage verifiers to facilitate cross-chain information verification and ensure secure data processing.
Based on the CARV protocol, CARV will build a number of flagship products to achieve efficient matching of data and demand in specific scenarios, while providing specific demonstrations on how data can empower product development, generate real monetary benefits, and distribute them to users in an open and transparent manner.
CARV Play, the first flagship application launched, is one of the vivid examples: as a game player portrait and game distribution platform, CARV Play currently has more than 900 products on the shelves and has 2.5 million players. Every day, a large number of users explore the rich game combinations and exclusive activities through the platform, and get various rewards, physical gifts or ecological rights while "having fun". Game project parties can also understand player needs through user participation, and conduct efficient game display and information distribution, thereby building a game community.
In addition, the success of the recently popular TON ecosystem mini-game BANANA is also inseparable from the support of CARV: by fully leveraging the advantages of CARV Play, CARV Protocol and the CARV mobile application with more than 3 million registered users, BANANA achieved precise reach of the target audience in a short period of time, and achieved viral expansion through recommendation mechanisms and UGC/sharing activities. Within 4 weeks of its launch, BANANA reached 10 million monthly active users.
In addition to games, CARV has also launched corresponding products in the AI sector: Cara is a generative AI assistant built on the CARV protocol. Under the premise of full privacy protection, user data can be used for artificial intelligence (AI) training. Users can receive corresponding rewards in the process of sharing data and participating in AI training, and can also customize the AI service experience according to their unique needs and preferences.
In addition, developers are the key role in ecological competition, and effective ecological incentives centered on developers are necessary measures to promote the emergence and prosperity of ecological innovation.
Based on this, CARV Labs launched a $50 million ecosystem accelerator program this week to further promote user and data growth by providing rich resources and financial support to high-quality ecosystem projects. The program is supported by top blockchain venture capital funds such as HashKey Capital and Consensys.
CARV Labs' most recent investment is in Telgather, a leading gaming studio. Telgather is committed to revolutionizing the gaming experience and bringing more revenue through innovative ways such as Pay&Play to Earn and Social to Earn, which perfectly aligns with CARV's vision of a decentralized, player-centric future of gaming. By integrating CARV ID and personalized advertising SDK, Telgather will further provide players with true game achievement ownership, seamless cross-game experience, and the opportunity to monetize game data and earn revenue.
The combination of the two is not only another example of how CARV, as a modular identity data layer, empowers the development of games, but will also be committed to creating a new era of Telegram games and building a powerful and vibrant ecosystem in the future.
In addition, CARV Labs will also guide developers to explore more business model innovations, among which the most anticipated is the TG Advertising Network: this product aims to connect advertisers and publishers. Relying on the CARV Protocol, users who share on-chain and off-chain data (with full privacy protection) will receive cash incentives, enabling the CARV Advertising Network to provide advertisers with accurate user acquisition and positioning services.
In the foreseeable future, CARV will attract a large number of developers to participate and will freely explore various possibilities based on the CARV protocol, injecting more driving force into the growth of the CARV ecosystem.
Multiple milestones achieved, token TGE is imminent
Of course, compared to reviewing past achievements, community members are more concerned about future expectations.
What is the potential for CARV to continue to improve in the future?
We can get a glimpse of this from the roadmap updated on its official website.
Technical aspects: In the third quarter of 2024, the Beta version of the CARV protocol will be released, including open SDK/API access, support for multi-chain interoperability, integration of ZKP, etc.; by the fourth quarter of 2024, the team will be committed to building a dedicated modular blockchain that supports the storage layer and execution layer.
In terms of ecology, in addition to actively seeking cooperation to continuously expand the ecological game and AI territory, another important milestone of CARV is the token TGE which will be held in the second half of 2024.
For any project, token TGE is an important event that affects the long-term development of the project, and how to better give back to the community is the highlight of token TGE.
So, facing the upcoming token TGE, should we actively participate?
The community’s enthusiastic response has already given the answer.
The reasons can be divided into three parts:
First of all, the CARV token has real application scenarios as its value support.
As the native token of the CARV ecosystem, the total issuance of CARV tokens is 1 billion. It serves as a medium of exchange within the platform and is not only an important vehicle for motivating users, but users can also use it to pay multi-chain gas fees and purchase game assets within the ecosystem, or convert it into veCARV through staking, and participate in community decision-making and ecological activities through veCARV.
Secondly, judging from past performance, CARV has shown full respect for the community and has been quite generous.
On the one hand, 50% of the total supply of CARV tokens is evenly distributed to the community and nodes; on the other hand, in the previous node sales, CARV launched a 6-month treasury 100% buyback plan for its first node sales buyers. All eligible active node operators can choose to apply for 80% ETH or 100% CARV token buyback within 7 days at the end of the 6th month, which once again fully reflects the project's consideration and maintenance of community interests.
More importantly, in this open airdrop of CARV, CARV encourages users to bind accounts to achieve data aggregation, while ensuring that rewards are distributed to real users. Binding more accounts will get higher scores, which also means more substantial airdrop rewards.
In addition, CARV has also launched a variety of initiatives to promote fair distribution: on the one hand, CARV launched a witch self-surrender mechanism to encourage multi-account witch users to proactively report their behavior and receive 15% of the originally allocated tokens. Those who fail to report by the deadline will lose all token allocation qualifications; on the other hand, CARV has established cooperation with Gitcoin to further promote the distribution of token airdrops to those who truly contribute to the development and sustainability of the network by analyzing the witch behavior on the chain.
Under the premise of good expected returns and low participation threshold, actively participating in accumulating airdrop chips has become the current choice of many community members.
So, how can users better participate?
Currently on the CARV airdrop page, users can switch back and forth between four chains (Ronin, opbnb, zksync era, Linea), and obtain SOUL rewards by signing in, minting CARV ID, binding accounts, inviting friends, completing game tasks, etc., and SOUL can be exchanged for CARV tokens in the future. In other words, the more SOUL accumulated now, the higher the expected future returns.
However, with the advent of snapshots, users do not have enough time to complete tasks and accumulate SOUL, and the community is focusing more on nodes in order to gain CARV token benefits.
Anyone can become an independent node operator by participating in the node sale. The verification node is an important part of the CARV ecosystem. It is responsible for verifying TEE proofs to prevent system manipulation and ensure fair distribution of data value, providing a secure decentralized data environment for high-quality games and applications.
At the same time, up to 25% of the CARV token supply will be allocated to node rewards. Not only will 50% be released in the first year (that is, 12.5% of the total supply), but the token redemption period is 150 days, while the investor unlocking period is 6 months and the team unlocking period is 9 months. The node tokens are unlocked earlier than the investors and the team, which fully reflects the utmost sincerity given by CARV through the node sales model and user sharing of profits.
In addition to the token TGE, the CARV ecosystem has a variety of reward activities to encourage users to actively participate. Infinite Play is the epitome of them: users can participate in staking to obtain Stake to Earn income. The longer the staking period, the richer the return; they can obtain Vote to Earn income by participating in governance voting; they can also accumulate experience points by completing different game tasks to obtain Play to Earn income. While enjoying the fun of the game, they can truly experience the charm of data sovereignty and decentralized autonomous communities.
It is worth mentioning that previously, CARV jointly launched the Ecodrop pt 1 additional airdrop event with many high-quality projects in the ecosystem, including Revolving Games, InfiniGods & Valhalla Foundation, XPLA, OVERTAKE, Aethir, etc., which received widespread support from the community, and rewards worth US$2 million were distributed to actively participating users.
According to the official blog post, the CARV Ecodrop pt 2 event is coming soon. CARV has also joined forces with six high-quality game projects in the ecosystem, including Space Mavericks, Lazy Games, Super Champs, Goat Gaming, Terminal, and BeraSig. Participants can participate in sharing an additional reward worth $500,000 by actively participating in game interactions and completing related tasks. In addition to the token TGE, participating in CARV Ecodrop pt 2 is also a good way to explore the ecosystem in depth and win more rewards.
In short, as the wave of digitalization sweeps the world, data is an eternal business. Under the premise of increasingly acute conflicts over privacy leakage and monopoly by giants in Web2, Web3 solutions that aim to return data ownership to users, protect user privacy, and promote fairer distribution of data value are bound to stand out.
From the perspective of the project itself, CARV's foundation is very solid. Not only are the team configuration and financing lineup very strong, but the game and AI tracks targeted by the project are also sufficiently consistent with the development needs and user preferences of its modular identity and data layer. In addition, the narrative appeal of the project should not be underestimated. By innovating the way data value is distributed and providing real money benefits, it will undoubtedly attract more users' attention and participation.
At present, the project has accumulated considerable popularity in the community, which has laid a good foundation for its future development. Especially driven by the success of the BANANA project, CARV Protocol has attracted more attention. With the arrival of the token TGE and the gradual implementation of various milestones, perhaps CARV will usher in its own flywheel effect, promoting the rapid development of the project in terms of products, ecology, and users.
