From September 16th to 17th, Tako Protocol, BlockBeats and Jam jointly held the first large-scale Farcaster ecosystem offline event in Asia in Singapore and it ended successfully. The conference aims to deeply explore and showcase the innovative achievements of the Farcaster ecosystem and the future prospects of Web3 social networking, breaking the stereotype of one-way output in traditional financial encryption conferences. Many Farcaster ecosystem builders, active users of the Farcaster ecosystem in Asia, VCs and well-known investors, senior researchers, etc. attended the event.
At 10 am on the 17th, FarCon Asia officially opened at The Art House in Singapore. The meeting was divided into two agendas. The morning session consisted of a conversation between Base protocol leader Jesse, Tako founder Tony, Farcaster protocol founder Dan, and Farcaster KOL Ted. BlockBeats reported the wonderful speeches of the guests. Related readings: "Jesse: Paving the way for creators, Asia is now a hot spot for on-chain innovation | Dialogue with the front line", "Farcaster founder: Warpcast will reduce registration fees and encourage more personalized voices | Dialogue with the front line"
The afternoon meeting agenda consisted of five high-quality panels, including Jane Lippencott, A16Z crypto investment partner, Andrei Grachev, DWF Labs executive partner, and Cheryl Chan, Dragonfly partner. BlockBeats organized the core content of this roundtable discussion, hoping to help social application developers and audiences. The following is the content of the conversation:
Roundtable Topic: Building a Decentralized Social Network - Opportunities and Challenges
a16z Crypto Partner: Early-stage projects need to have clear stakeholder groups, and Farcaster has an advantage in user diversity
Jane Lippencott, Partner at a16z Crypto:
For early projects, a united community may be needed to gain initial traction, and the quality of the community's content is also very important. Only when the project has very clear stakeholders in this field, and their connections are coherent and high-quality, will the project have a stronger sense of attachment and higher usage.
I personally think that user diversity is very important, and if you look at what Twitter has achieved, you'll see that they have the potential for user diversity. I agree that users don't necessarily care if they own their data, but I think there are a lot of benefits for users if their data is owned by a network and can be accessed through different client experiences. I think what's more important is the experience that any developer can build using the network. The Farcaster ecosystem does this very well.
Tako Co-founder: Decentralized social projects will bypass many traditional methods, and token incentives are a new way for creators to earn income that is worth exploring
Tony, co-founder of Tako Protocol:
The key to Farcaster is using crypto, which will bypass a lot of traditional ways. In the traditional ecosystem, if you are a creator on TikTok, you should be able to collect more than 30% in fees from the platform, and I think this is also feasible in the open network, and you can solve such problems to a certain extent through incentive tokens, which you hold and ensure that other value is brought into the network. So I think this is the root reason why we are exploring, that is, using token incentives instead of using fair cash.
Roundtable topic: Strategies and inspirations for online social discussions
STEPN Lianchuang: Profit model and user growth are crucial for products, and AI still needs to be explored
STEPN co-founder Yawn Rong:
When a project becomes popular just because of token incentives, it usually ends up being worthless. Maybe we can discuss why you would want to own something on the chain other than token incentives? No one has figured out how to get users to spend money on a product, and if they don't spend money on the product, it means the product is not up to the standard that they are willing to spend money on. Based on the analysis of the past 3 years, I think that to do this, you need to have very strong growth. Stay in business for a while, and you will have a critical mass of users, and their spending will increase accordingly.
I think for most AI companies, they can't figure out what to do with their products and how to make money. I don't think that combining blockchain or cryptocurrency can solve this problem. So, I'm not saying that I'm not optimistic about AI. Maybe in the next 10 to 20 years, AI will dominate, but we need to figure out how this technology will develop. The first is how to monetize, and the second is how to grow. For AI companies, they are just burning investors' money, although it is still in the early stages.
Taiko Social and Game Director: Web3 games should be patient in polishing quality. Playing games for token incentives is not a long-term solution.
Pigi, Social and Gaming Director at Taiko:
There are indeed problems with many current token economics, but this is another topic. It cannot be denied that direct rewards are very effective in games. I think raising funds directly from your other projects is also a very effective thing. For example, "Black Myth: Wukong" took 7 years to develop, and the team even set up another department to release mobile games just to fund the development of "Black Myth: Wukong" itself. If you can get these funds in advance from a community that supports your project, it will be much easier.
The industry habit in the past was to launch products quickly, with very short product cycles, but games take several years, especially good games, so we should be patient and wait for quality. In addition, I think a very important point is not to set the entry threshold too high. If you dare to sell your NFT for 0.4 ETH without a product, it really won’t work. Even if you need to raise funds, you should lower the threshold for buyers.
For example, a game like Black Myth: Wukong costs $70, but it's really great. So why would I spend $1,000 (0.4 ETH) on something that only has a trailer? And maybe I have to wait three years to join the private beta, and maybe have the right NFT. People spend a lot of time playing games, and their life time is precious. Time is money, so rewards are a nice addition. But if a token or incentive is the main purpose of playing the game, it's missing the point.
Roundtable Topic: Meme and NFT also have dreams
DWF Labs partner: Meme coin is a culture related to people, and it is worth learning from for everyone who wants to make a successful project
Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner, DWF Labs:
Projects that look really good and promising. I think there is about a 95% chance that new tokens will be launched. When you invest in normal projects, you need to wait (for them to launch coins), which may be months or even years. But with Meme coins, you can receive feedback almost immediately. Meme coins are a cultural structure that people are related to. If we talk about successful culture, people should understand this.
Who is behind the project and how can you leverage all the resources you have to make it successful. I believe that's where we need to focus. I think Meme Coin is a perfect example of where you need to have a community, you need to have traders, you need to be able to inject liquidity, you need to have connections with trading platforms, and you need to be creative enough to create something that people like.
Yuga Labs Community and Partnership Director: The term NFT is outdated, and various projects are trying to rebrand
Tina, Head of Community and Partnerships at Yuga Labs:
I think the term NFT is definitely outdated, I think so. NFT projects need to be rebranded, and I think we are seeing different attempts at "rebranding" from project to project, but digital identity and digital ownership are not going away. As for where it's going, I can talk about our approach at Yuga Labs and how we see people engaging with NFT purchases.
If you are an Ape creator, you want to leverage your Ape intellectual property to build a business. We started a project called Mede by Apes for this purpose. For me, NFTs are just getting started on this path. Reviewing roadmaps is a tricky thing, and we have seen a lot of roadmap promises from other teams that have not been fulfilled. But you need to really look at the team behind it, who is holding, the team's ability to deliver, and how you see the investment being put back into the community.
BlockBeats Note: "Made by Apes" is an IP (intellectual property) tool launched by Yuga Labs. Members can apply for unique on-chain licenses, register businesses or products (such as clothing, food, games, music, etc.). In addition, the platform can also be used to verify and distinguish authentic products produced by BAYC and MAYC holders.
