On December 18, 2024, 137Labs held a highly anticipated X Space event themed 【Web3 New Entry, One-stop On-chain Exploration, Interaction, and Revenue】. The event invited experts from various fields, including DapDap BeraTown founder Socratic, Berachain APAC BD Nezha Bear, BeraHome Housekeeper Yond, Honeypot CEO Wilson, and 137Labs analyst Ivan, to discuss how one-stop on-chain platforms in the Web3 ecosystem can drive innovation in user experience and analyze how these platforms can provide users with more convenient interactions, revenue, and liquidity.
During the event, guests engaged in in-depth discussions about the fragmentation issues of Web3 platforms and shared their experiences and insights, exploring how DapDap simplifies user operations and enhances user retention through the integration of multi-chain and key applications. The guests also discussed how to promote platform growth and widespread adoption among Web3 users through AI agents, chain abstraction, and innovative user incentive mechanisms.
This article will review this exciting discussion, deeply analyze the innovation and development of Web3 on-chain platforms, explore how to achieve rapid growth of Web3 users by enhancing user experience and guiding liquidity, and provide you with profound insights into the future Web3 ecosystem, helping you seize the latest opportunities in this field.
Q1 Why are current Web3 on-chain applications and tools so fragmented?
Bowen believes that the fragmentation of Web3 on-chain applications and tools is primarily due to the fact that many project parties' core motivation is profit. Since DeFi Summer, many projects have begun forking to make money. This has led to fragmented behavior in the market, as many projects have not optimized the user experience from the user's perspective, but instead focused more on how to grab market heat through fundraising and token issuance. As the market rapidly evolves, more and more projects are beginning to value improving user experience and realize the potential of providing a one-stop platform; in the future, more projects may attempt to provide better user experiences by integrating different chains and applications. DapDap's goal is to address the current fragmentation issues in the market. He stated that DapDap has observed a plethora of fragmented projects and user experience (UX) designs in the market, and the launch of these projects often lacks thoughtful integration and innovation. DapDap aims to create a more unified ecosystem by integrating different chains, applications, and user experiences, thereby improving the overall user experience. One of DapDap's experiments is centered around Berachain. He stated that DapDap's goal is to build a user guidance system similar to a Disney experience to help users better enter the Berachain ecosystem. Specifically, DapDap has created a platform called Bera Town, which acts like a guide map, allowing users to understand the locations of different applications and functions and experience various on-chain functionalities and services based on guided experiences. This design aims to provide users with a more engaging, innovative, and valuable experience while also addressing fragmentation issues. To achieve this, DapDap integrates several key applications (such as Infrared, Liquid Staking, Honeypot, Beraborrow, etc.) together to create a more attractive comprehensive experience platform. Through this innovative user experience, about 6 million transactions were completed evenly across various applications in the past five days through the Christmas event.
Q2 What are the core experience pain points of on-chain interaction? What pain points were addressed by the success of the Christmas event?
Bowen believes that the Christmas event was so successful primarily because it addressed two key pain points. Firstly, the event integrated all key applications and functionalities, allowing users to interact with these applications more efficiently. This integration not only improved the fluidity of the user experience but also allowed users to conveniently access multiple applications and services on a single platform, avoiding fragmentation between different applications and enhancing overall interaction efficiency.
Secondly, Bowen believes that the potential of Berachain itself is also an important reason for the success of the event. He stated that the launch of Berachain has brought high expectations, especially from developers' and users' perspectives; everyone is confident that this chain will become one of the hottest chains in the market. Berachain is very strong in cultural shaping, user cohesion, and synergy among applications, which also laid the foundation for the event's success.
Leslie believes that the current pain points in the Web3 industry are mainly reflected in several aspects. Firstly, users want to easily and conveniently connect to various applications and to smoothly manage the inflow and outflow of funds, including providing fiat gateways. This is vital for enhancing the user experience. Secondly, the convenience of operations is also a key issue, especially the optimization for mobile devices. Leslie mentioned that many applications currently have apps, but still primarily rely on web versions, making the user experience less smooth. Therefore, Web3 applications need to pay more attention to mobile UI and UX design to ensure a more user-friendly and efficient experience on mobile.
In addition, Leslie emphasized the importance of a simple and understandable operation interface. He mentioned that some meme platforms and decentralized exchanges have made it easier for users to operate by simplifying UI designs and focusing on mobile devices, while also adding customizable features to meet user needs. This design allows users to get started more quickly during participation, enhancing the platform's attractiveness and user stickiness.
Leslie also mentioned that some projects allow users to place instant bets while watching live streams on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, with quick settlements. This instant settlement feature meets users' demands for not wanting to wait and quickly understanding their results, enhancing the timeliness and enjoyment of interactions. There are projects like Puffpaw that meet user needs through electronic cigarette products, or projects like Eden that cater to adult toy demands; although these projects may be somewhat 'edgy', they successfully align with customer needs and human factors, making it easier for users to engage and enjoy the experience.
Overall, Leslie believes that to address the industry's pain points, Web3 applications must optimize user experience, especially in simplifying operation processes, providing mobile-friendly designs, ensuring rapid fund movement, and delivering instant feedback. At the same time, attention should also be paid to human-centered design to meet users' diverse needs, whether for profit, entertainment, or personal interests.
Q3 How does DapDap fundamentally solve the experience problem of on-chain interaction in Web3?
Bowen mentioned that he reflects on how to optimize user experience from the multi-chain tools he often uses. For example, he frequently uses DeBank to track his assets across different chains because users often forget they have assets on certain chains. Therefore, DapDap aims to help users manage multi-chain assets better by providing a centralized platform to view and manage all their assets across chains.
To achieve this, DapDap integrates dozens of chains and hundreds of applications on its platform. Users can see their assets across different chains through DapDap, not just the balances in their wallets, but also their DeFi portfolios. DapDap performs data indexing, enabling users to clearly understand their asset status across different chains and provides an interface to help them centralize asset management on one platform. This way, users can see their wealth across different 'islands' as if they were playing a game and conveniently consolidate or disperse their assets.
In addition, Bowen mentioned that DapDap has made an optimization attempt regarding users' needs in DeFi trading. He cited an example of DapDap developing a marketplace platform on Berachain, where users can directly view the hottest tokens on-chain without having to use third-party tools like Dex Screener. This marketplace platform integrates multiple popular applications, such as Honeypot, allowing users to buy tokens they are interested in with one click. Through these optimizations, DapDap reduces the hassle of users jumping between multiple platforms while enhancing trading convenience and efficiency.
DapDap simplifies user operation processes by integrating asset management, DeFi applications, and trading functions across different chains into one platform, making on-chain interaction in Web3 more intuitive and efficient. By focusing on the user perspective, DapDap optimizes multi-chain interaction experiences, allowing users to manage and trade their assets more easily.
Wilson pointed out that the sense of fragmentation in on-chain applications and tools mainly comes from two aspects: one is the lack of interactivity among various applications, and the other is the absence of necessary infrastructure to connect these applications. For instance, certain projects require infrastructure like LaunchPad and Dex to manage liquidity and incentives to ensure smooth interoperability between different applications.
Taking Hyperliquid as an example, they enhance user experience through 'Chain Abstraction'. With chain abstraction, users feel almost no complexity of on-chain operations when using applications, as all cross-chain interactions are hidden, providing a smooth experience. This approach not only makes operations easier for users but also enhances the interconnectivity of applications.
Regarding DapDap, Wilson believes it helps users perform seamless cross-chain and cross-application interactions by effectively integrating different applications, thereby solving the sense of fragmentation users experience in Web3. He mentioned that by concentrating multiple chains and Dapps on the same platform, users can easily understand and participate in various activities. For instance, users can directly access Honeypot through DapDap, participate in different activities to increase their returns, and then transfer related assets to other DapDaos for further operations, such as lending on Beraborrow. The entire process is very intuitive for users, requiring minimal understanding of the underlying technology and how multiple applications are interconnected.
Wilson also mentioned that Honeypot, when designing user experiences, adopted a vertical integration strategy. By integrating liquidity management, LP provider incentive mechanisms, and some derivative trading platforms, Honeypot offers users the possibility of higher yields. This vertically integrated experience also enhances users' understanding and engagement with various DeFi operations.
Wilson further elaborated on the future development of cross-chain experience through an analogy. He mentioned that the traditional way of trading stocks required going to physical companies to operate, resulting in very low asset accessibility and market liquidity. With advancements in technology and digitalization, we can now trade directly in the global stock market through stock trading apps, making the experience more convenient and greatly enhancing asset accessibility.
Regarding the cross-chain experience of Web3, he believes that current technology has begun to develop in this direction, especially in terms of chain abstraction. The goal of chain abstraction is to simplify cross-chain operations so that users can operate across different blockchains as if they were on a single platform, reducing cumbersome steps and complexity.
He also cited an example of cooperation with Across to illustrate the progress of cross-chain operations. Across is one of the major cross-chain bridges in the market, and they announced a new cross-chain intent standard ERC-7683 with Uniswap, which aims to establish a unified framework for specific cross-chain operations based on intent. Wilson believes that the maturity of this technology will bring users a more intuitive and smooth experience: in the future, users will be able to easily deposit assets like USDT into different DeFi networks through simple selections and clicks, without needing to understand the yields of different pools or go through complicated configurations. DapDap is working with Across to apply these innovations to the Berachain ecosystem, thereby optimizing user experience. With these improvements, users will be able to perform cross-chain operations in a simpler and more efficient manner, and this enhancement is expected to gradually materialize in the next 6 to 12 months.
Q4 How do user incentive mechanisms promote growth?
Bowen emphasized that DapDap shapes a 'credibility system' through forms such as badges, points, and gems to help filter out high-quality users and provide corresponding rewards based on these users' levels. In this way, the platform can incentivize active users and help form a sustainable economic system.
He mentioned attempts in Berachain, where different applications were gathered, and the developers of these applications provided substantial support, offering rewards to users through NFTs, whitelists, and other forms. For example, projects like Puffpaw and Eden provided their products for users to use, further strengthening user participation motivation. At the same time, by organizing interesting activities and experiences, such as Snowflakes and Christmas Unboxing, the platform not only enhanced user participation but also improved the overall ecosystem's activity.
In summary, Bowen emphasized that through engaging and creative activities and reward systems, the platform can attract and retain high-quality users while fostering a healthy growth ecosystem. However, he also noted that there are still many unknown challenges in this process, and the platform will continue to optimize its incentive mechanisms based on market feedback.
Leslie added regarding DapDap's user incentive mechanism, especially how to promote the platform's growth through activities and simplified operations. He mentioned that DapDap will launch a Christmas-related flash event, planned to last three to four days, inviting multiple projects to participate and providing benefits to users to increase platform activity.
In addition, Leslie introduced a new incentive mechanism — the Pre-deposit activity. After Christmas, DapDap will allow users to provide liquidity for different Berachain applications through the Royco platform and negotiate terms to receive corresponding token rewards. Participants can discuss the conditions for liquidity storage and the quantity of tokens with project parties. This approach gives users greater bargaining power on the platform, enabling them to reach mutually beneficial agreements with project parties, ensuring transparency and fairness in rewards and liquidity releases.
The advantage of this incentive mechanism lies in avoiding the opacity and unfairness found in previous projects, as all rules and processes are transparent. Users can clearly understand their investments and returns, and negotiate with project parties to find the most suitable solutions for their needs, thereby gaining more confidence in participating. Leslie also emphasized that by combining Beratoken, Stargate Token, and the tokens of various projects, this activity will provide users with substantial rewards.
Q5 Can DapDap become users' daily starting point in Web3?
Bowen believes that DapDap becoming users' daily starting point in Web3 is still in a developmental phase. He mentioned that the current Web3 experience still faces many challenges, especially in simplifying user operations and lowering barriers, which have not yet reached his ideal requirements. For example, in terms of sign-in, DapDap currently still relies on Web3 wallets like MetaMask, which remains a barrier for some users, especially those who are not Web3 native.
Bowen also mentioned that to achieve the goal of being a daily starting point, DapDap needs to address the issues of chain abstraction and inter-application connections to present them to users in a more intuitive way. He illustrated that DapDap is collaborating with a small team to filter based on user behavior data and provide personalized recommendations, such as popping up suggestion windows to guide them on the next steps after completing certain actions. This approach can help users participate in the platform more smoothly.
He also emphasized the fun and appeal of on-chain activities, believing that the advantage of Web3 lies in its ability to offer users higher profit opportunities than centralized exchanges. Therefore, DapDap's goal is not only to provide an enjoyable experience but also to accelerate users' exposure to 'Alpha' opportunities, for example, through features like Marketplace to help users discover potential high-yield opportunities more quickly.
Q6 Is intent-driven development a key breakthrough for the future?
Bowen believes that while intent-driven development is a trend, the concept is currently somewhat overused. Many applications have attempted to implement this direction, but most have not truly achieved 'intent-driven' functionality. He pointed out that many projects claiming to be 'intent-driven' have only addressed the issues of intent logic without genuinely solving how to execute these intents. The real challenge lies in how to connect user intents with suitable applications and execute related transactions or operations.
Bowen further explained that although intent-driven development is an important trend for simplifying user experience, every user intent needs to be integrated with various key applications, a process that remains complex and cumbersome. Therefore, to make intent-driven systems larger and more effective, it is necessary to resolve how to efficiently integrate and manage these applications, a process that currently still faces unavoidable challenges.
He also mentioned that although intent-driven development aims to simplify user interactions with applications, from a technical implementation perspective, training a developer's agent to understand natural language and convert it into on-chain transactions is not particularly complex. A developer might complete this task in just a week. Therefore, Bowen believes that the essence of intent-driven development is to simplify user operations, solve user experience problems, and thus enhance interaction efficiency with key applications.
In summary, Bowen believes that intent-driven development is a major trend for the future, but the current challenge lies in how to effectively integrate these intents with application execution so as to truly simplify the user experience. He expects intent-driven development to continue to evolve, but it may take different forms and strategies in the implementation process.
Q7 Is it possible for DapDap to apply NEAR's chain abstraction technology to future projects, not just limited to Berachain business?
When responding to whether DapDap will use NEAR's chain abstraction technology, Bowen affirmed that they indeed plan to apply NEAR's chain abstraction technology to the DapDap project in the future, not just limited to Berachain business. He mentioned that he is currently involved in setting the overall strategy for NEAR's ecosystem, particularly in terms of chain abstraction and intent network work. Specifically, Bowen discussed a potential application scenario where by introducing NEAR's intent network into Berachain, users could use Bera tokens or Honeytokens to directly exchange native assets on the Bitcoin network.
However, Bowen also pointed out two major obstacles. The first obstacle is that when Berachain began interacting with Bitcoin assets, the user behavior patterns were not yet clear, so it is necessary to first understand the user behavior in the Bitcoin ecosystem and how to connect these Bitcoin users with the Berachain user experience. The second obstacle is that the current user experience of chain abstraction is not perfect, especially when NEAR's chain abstraction is used for on-chain Bitcoin transactions. Although the quotes are relatively superior, users still need to make deposits and withdrawals, which involves too many steps for retail users, making the experience less smooth.
Bowen emphasized that the core goal of chain abstraction is to hide these cumbersome steps, allowing users to focus only on the assets they want to purchase or the operations they want to execute, without needing to understand the complex processes behind them. He mentioned that DapDap is also awaiting more refined user experience improvements to smoothly introduce chain abstraction technology into the Berachain ecosystem.
Q8 Regarding AI agents, is DapDap considering adding functionalities similar to AI robots in the future, allowing users to interact with AI through simple commands to help them complete operations, particularly simplifying the process for new users?
Bowen mentioned that DapDap is indeed developing a device based on a large language model that will be able to provide users with different AI agent models to help them better perform on-chain operations. He stated that although this device was initially planned for release, its launch has been delayed due to the current focus on Berachain. However, Bowen confirmed that they will continue to advance this device in the future and hope to offer cooler features.
Bowen further added that this AI agent model will be able to help users, especially new users, by providing intelligent guidance. Through interaction with the AI agent, users can complete on-chain operations simply by conversing with the AI, such as using applications in DeFi, GameFi, or NFT fields. He believes that this will greatly lower the learning curve for new users in the Web3 ecosystem and provide them with a smoother experience.
Yond added that the current Berachain testnet is performing well and meeting most users' needs, and they are adding more RPC nodes to improve performance. The testnet's speed and execution times have met expectations, but they are continually monitoring improvements. Yond also mentioned that the mainnet is about to launch, and currently, around seventy to eighty projects plan to issue their tokens concurrently, which will further drive the development of the Berachain ecosystem. Meanwhile, liquidity has been sufficiently supported; although no POL liquidity incentive mechanism has been introduced, Berachain's spontaneous liquidity is already quite stable.
Regarding BGT, Yond revealed that the release of BGT will be initiated approximately one month after the mainnet stabilizes. BGT will be allocated to different project pools to help attract liquidity and promote asset price performance. For teams intending to issue tokens or launch projects on Berachain, Yond welcomes their participation and stated that this model will help enhance the market attention of the projects.
Additionally, Yond mentioned the Pre-deposit activity starting after Christmas, allowing users to store assets in advance to prepare for the official launch of the mainnet. He also stated that the team is exploring some new technical solutions, including innovative technologies like Parelle, to further enhance platform performance and user experience.
Q9 How can explosive growth in user numbers be achieved? How do DapDap's product planning, technical roadmap, and ecological layout support this goal? How to ensure retention of both new and existing users?
Leslie emphasized several key factors when asked how to achieve explosive growth in the number of Web3 users.
Firstly, attracting users hinges on the playability and human-centered design of applications; users want applications that are easy to use and bring profits. He believes that the ultimate attraction of Web3 applications lies in their ability to provide high-yield opportunities, as the primary purpose of participating across different chains is to earn profits. Secondly, Leslie mentioned that maintaining cultural characteristics and community cohesion is also a key factor.
Thirdly, Leslie emphasized the importance of liquidity, especially in Web3, stating that it is crucial for helping projects solve liquidity issues. He pointed out that many on-chain projects have high market values but still lack sufficient trading volume. By attracting liquidity, not only can trading frequency be increased, but it can also facilitate more transactions and asset flows, ultimately bringing profits to users and project parties.
Leslie proposed that DapDap hopes to attract more users to participate in trading and coin issuance by helping projects accelerate liquidity improvement. He also stated that through more innovations and enjoyable content, more attention can be drawn to the platform, enhancing overall activity and revenue in the process. To support this goal, DapDap plans to return liquidity income to BGT holders through a dividend mechanism, as these holders are essentially providing liquidity for the network.
Finally, Leslie mentioned that DapDap's product planning not only focuses on combining with meme culture and AI agents but also promotes broader dissemination and participation through collaboration with different community members and cultural innovators. This approach will help establish an effective communication chain among Web3 users and further drive the growth of the Web3 ecosystem.
Conclusion
In-depth discussions during this X Space event allowed the guests to comprehensively analyze how one-stop on-chain platforms in the Web3 ecosystem can solve fragmentation issues and drive innovation in user experience from multiple perspectives. From how DapDap integrates multi-chain asset management and DeFi applications to Berachain's potential in cultural shaping and user cohesion, the guests showcased the importance of innovative protocols and user incentive mechanisms in enhancing platform activity and user retention. Furthermore, DapDap will simplify user operation processes by introducing chain abstraction technology and AI agents, making Web3 applications more convenient and enjoyable. As the Web3 industry continues to evolve, cross-chain integration, user experience optimization, and liquidity enhancement will bring more opportunities and challenges to the industry. In this rapidly developing crypto world, keeping up with technological innovation, focusing on user needs, and promoting sustainable development of the ecosystem will be key to the success of Web3 projects.
