Table of contents
1. The development history of the entrance
2. About the current situation of Web3 entrance
3. Web3 portal comparison
4. Prospects for future portals of Web3
Assuming that Twitter can carry out decentralized reforms or be compatible with a large number of Web3 industry applications, it may break all the current Web3 traffic distribution patterns.
1. The development history of the entrance
Currently, the Web3 industry as a whole is in the early stages of development. Compared with the traditional Web2 industry, traffic capture is still in a relatively primitive stage and is usually carried out in a crude way. With the development of the Web3 industry, we roughly divide the methods of obtaining traffic into three major stages based on user needs.
Early days:
In the early stages of the crypto industry, the main demand of users was the trading of cryptocurrencies. Most users in the crypto industry often accessed centralized trading platforms (CEX) through web or mobile terminals to use various functions, such as the early Mt. Gox and Bittrex. Therefore, at this stage, CEX was the main entrance for traffic, resulting in the emergence of a large number of CEXs, such as Binance, Huobi, OKEX, KuCoin, MEXC, Gate, etc. In addition to trading cryptocurrencies, since users also have the need for fiat currency deposits and withdrawals, CEXs often provide P2P deposit and withdrawal services to further control traffic entrances. However, because CEX holds a large market share, once CEX has problems, it will have a serious impact on the entire market. The Mentougou incident is a good example.
Mid-term:
With the continuous development of the encryption industry, the functions required by individual users are gradually enriched, such as using blockchain wallets to store digital currencies or transfer funds, interact on the chain, etc. Especially after the birth of Ethereum, the launch of smart contracts has brought about the development of the on-chain ecosystem. For a time, DAPPs were born like mushrooms after a rain. Coupled with the popularization of basic knowledge in the encryption industry and the influx of a large number of new users, the usage of wallets also increased. From then on, the wallets also assumed the mission of the entrance to various DAPPs on the chain.
In the subsequent development, the business scope of CEX and wallets further expanded, and CEX gradually began to develop financial derivatives businesses around transactions, such as adding contracts, options, etc., to compete with wallets. However, due to the single public chain and the lack of on-chain infrastructure, major wallets support fewer chains, and functions such as transfer and cross-chain are not as good as the trading platform experience. Especially after the birth of Tron, the extremely low transfer fees have a great advantage compared to CEX. However, due to the launch of EOS and USDT, the demand for on-chain interaction has increased significantly, the functions of wallets have been further expanded, the traffic part has tilted from CEX to wallets, and the on-chain ecology of the encryption industry has gradually taken shape.
now:
Nowadays, users' needs are more diverse. Due to the wealth creation effect of the encryption industry, users are eager for more direct ways to make profits and involve more complex businesses. As far as traditional CEX is concerned, CEX has introduced IEO and other extremely wealth-creating functions, and has also worked hard to integrate various derivative services and DAPP into its own ecosystem, such as Binance’s newly launched DeFi section and mini-program function, as well as Binance Pay wait. CEXs such as MEXC and Gate choose to launch more “local dog” projects to give users more choices. Therefore, CEX plays an increasingly critical role as the entrance to the entire Web3 ecosystem. At the same time, wallets have also begun to support multi-chains, and have begun to review aspects such as entrance security, and have built-in functions such as DEX.
Due to the further popularity of wallets and user demand for complex financial services, DeFi Summer emerged. Various DEX, lending, oracles, and derivatives trading markets emerged one after another. The wealth creation effect of the coin issuance wave brought a large number of new users to Web3 . During this period, some excellent leading Web3 applications independently used their own apps (or DAPPs) as their own independent traffic entrances, such as Opensea, StepN, etc., as well as used traditional Web2 applications as entrances to accompany Web3 application traffic. Methods, such as plug-ins for Twitter, and some traffic overflow to social platforms such as Telegram, Discord, etc. In general, with the rapid increase in traffic brought about by the development of the industry, the competition for traffic has further intensified. And due to the different needs of various traffic flows, traffic portals have begun to form with trading platforms and wallets as the main body, and other traffic portals develop in parallel. Diversified development models.
2. About the current situation of Web3 entrance
However, according to NFTgo.io data, on October 28, the total NFT transaction volume on Ethereum was approximately $10.68 million, while the Reddit Collectible Avatars transaction volume was approximately $2.5 million. In other words, Reddit NFTs have a trading volume equivalent to about 25% of the entire Ethereum NFT market. Opensea has approximately 2.3 million current cumulative users, and most of the 2.83 million Reddit NFT holders have registered for Reddit Vault. The number of registered Reddit wallets is almost the same as the number of wallets that have traded NFTs on Ethereum (approximately 3.43 million). A Web2 platform issuing an NFT can obtain the same scale of traffic as the entire Web3 NFT industry, and the number of users in a short period of time exceeds Web3's largest NFT market Opensea. It can be seen that although Web3 has already had many revolutionary innovations, there is still a lot of room for further development.
When we review the changes in Web2 portals, we find that the order of development is: portal website - search engine - PC social platform - mobile social platform. From the large and complete information collection that has been filtered, to the self-selected information collection, to the user's own information output, the user's fragmented information output, and finally the user's fragmented view information output. With the current Web3, from the original POW public chain investment mainly based on BTC, to the surge in investment targets in the ICO era, and then to the currency selection of IE0 and ID0, finally, users will conduct research, analyze and recommend high-quality projects voluntarily or based on DAO organizations. There are certain similarities. Information is changing from centralization, passivity, and complexity to decentralization, initiative, and simplicity.
Based on this phenomenon, we thought about the current status, distribution and future development of Web3 portals. Since everyone’s current definition of Web3 is not unified, this article defines Web3 as: Web3 refers to a collection of decentralized applications running on the blockchain. These applications (DAPPs) allow anyone to participate without sacrificing personal data. Therefore, when we talk about Web3 portals, we do not limit them to "Crypto", but include all objects that can divert traffic to them, such as traditional Web2 platforms, centralized trading platforms, Web2 games, etc.
We will classify Web3 portals based on different user behaviors, briefly describe their characteristics, and compare the main portals under the same category. Finally, we will give our views on the future development of each Web3 portal through its characteristics and comparison results.
3. Web3 portal comparison
Before classifying Web3 entrances, we need to determine the purpose of users entering Web3, or what Web3 can bring to users:
- Change the logic of existing applications: copyright confirmation, privacy ownership, asset ownership, behavioral incentives
- Cryptocurrency investment
- NFT investment
Based on the above-mentioned functions of Web3, we drew the process of users entering Web3. Based on this process, we defined two major categories of Web3 entrances:
1. Account system (deposits, withdrawals and fund management): centralized trading platform, independent deposits and withdrawals projects, deposits and withdrawals aggregators, cryptocurrency ATMs, cryptocurrency bank cards and over-the-counter transactions (OTC); EOA, CA and MPC wallets, Account Abstraction (AA).
2. Web3 DAPP (Tools, Social and Entertainment): DEX, NFT Marketplace, copyright trading market, domain name, DeSoc, GameFi, X to Earn.
Account System
1. Fund Management
Money management involves storing, sending and receiving crypto assets. In addition to early trading platforms, wallets are the main entrance for users in the encryption industry, carrying user identities, assets and even reputations. Security is the first priority for a wallet, and the second priority is convenience. The core of the wallet is actually a public and private key manager. The private key generated based on asymmetric encryption and other technologies gives the user absolute control over the wallet, address (public key), and assets. Therefore, how to manage private keys is a key technology for different wallet products. On top of this, how to do more expansion based on wallets is another battlefield for different wallet products.
The current main wallet types are divided into custodial wallets and non-custodial wallets. Simply put, it is whether you control your wallet through your private key. The main custodial wallet now is the trading platform account. The trading platform does it for you and keeps the assets in the wallet for you. Non-custodial wallets are relatively diverse, including hardware wallets, address wallets (EOA), and smart contract wallets (CA). The EOA wallet is divided into plug-in wallet and mobile wallet according to the usage method. At the same time, there is another extension of the EOA wallet, called multi-party secure computing wallet (MPC). And a new wallet concept, Account Abstraction (AA), upgrades the EOA wallet to have the function of smart contracts.
(1) Hosted wallet
"Having a private key means owning a wallet" sounds very safe, but in fact, it is precisely because the private key/mnemonic phrase is so important that the preservation of the private key/mnemonic phrase becomes the threshold for users to use the wallet. The user experience of most existing wallets is far from Web2 level. This is why CEX will become the first choice for most users entering Web3, because CEX allows users to only remember the login password. But the flaws are also obvious. Once the trading platform goes down, runs away, or is hacked, the assets in CEX may also disappear.
The Mt. Gox incident is a good example. In 2014, it announced that it had suspended user withdrawals because hackers had stolen 850,000 Bitcoins, and subsequently declared bankruptcy. In addition, since all funds in CEX are controlled by CEX, CEX can call funds by modifying the numbers (for example, the infamous data smash), or even directly misappropriate the funds in custody to increase value.
However, these shortcomings do not affect users' continued use of CEX. Because of the reputation endorsement of the trading platform itself, the ease of use of the trading platform, and the fact that most users only need secondary market transactions, the current trading platform still has the entire Web3 network. Partial traffic. In December 2021, there were 295 million users in the encryption industry, and Binance, the world's largest trading platform alone, had 120 million users, but Uniswap, the largest DEX that is also a trading platform, only had about 3.9 million users. It can be seen that CEX has great advantages as a Web3 portal. In other words, most users choose to sacrifice security for convenience.
(2) Non-custodial wallet
Contrary to CEX, most wallets sacrifice convenience for security, resulting in a high barrier for users to enter Web3. Specifically, hardware wallets are the most secure, because only by possessing both the hardware wallet and the password can the assets inside be called; but correspondingly, it is more complicated. First, users need to spend a lot of money to purchase a hardware wallet, and each time they use it Everyone must carry it with them, and once the hardware wallet is lost, the funds inside will also be lost.
The EOA wallet is relatively safe and convenient. Because the EOA wallet can be used based on web plug-ins or mobile software, users can access it more conveniently, but users still need to remember and keep the private key, but the EOA wallet provides another kind of private key - mnemonic phrase (12 an English word converted from the private key). Once the private key/mnemonic phrase is lost, the wallet is no longer safe, so while it is safe, it is also a risk. According to CertiK statistics, losses caused by private key leaks so far in 2022 have been at least US$274 million, including many professional market makers in the industry such as Wintermute.
Although there are new technologies, MPC wallets have been developed based on EOA wallets, and there are also more scalable CA wallets to achieve so-called private keyless or low-threshold wallets, EOA wallets are still the mainstream. Among them, Metamask (Little Fox) is the leader, with more than 80 million users in December 2021, and its monthly active users in March 2022 even exceeded 30 million. Although it is still dwarfed by Binance, the status of the little fox among the current software wallets is already unshakable.
In the MPC wallet, each party will get part of the private key, not all of it. This is similar to a multi-signature wallet, where multiple parties must sign to initiate a transaction. MPC wallet decentralizes private keys on the chain, increasing the security of wallet accounts. In addition, the MPC wallet can also perform the refresh function of key fragments: using new key fragments to replace the original key fragments in everyone's hands to solve the problem of key loss. Users only need to match the corresponding email address or biometrics and other verification information to retrieve their wallet assets. Compared with the current traditional wallets with cumbersome security operations, this latest solution undoubtedly increases user convenience and lowers the threshold for Web3 entry.
The emergence of Account Abstraction (AA) is likely to change the current wallet situation. Account Abstraction combines EOA and smart contracts, and upgrades the EOA wallet to a smart contract wallet (CA) without changing the underlying architecture of ETH, making EOA The entry barrier has been greatly reduced while giving it infinite scalability to realize most of the functions of the current Web2 account. For example, gas fee payment, no private key, account social recovery, etc. Specifically, smart contract wallets mean that the wallet itself will be programmable, customizable and even modular, which will allow smart contract wallets to have endless imagination. With a smart contract, the wallet can be customized such as the different security thresholds required for transfers of different amounts, the classification of operating permissions for different DAPPs, and a series of situations that smart contracts can implement, which will be closer to users. Current smart contract wallet cases: Argent (social recovery) Gnosis Safe (multi-signature) A3S (wallet transferability).
2. Deposit and withdrawal
Key factors for deposit and withdrawal projects include: identity verification, fiat-to-cryptocurrency deposits, and cryptocurrency-to-fiat withdrawals.
Usually users who trade more than a few hundred dollars per month require KYC. KYC requires identification (ID card, passport or driver’s license), proof of residence and facial recognition, etc. Most compliant trading platforms will require users to perform KYC before depositing or withdrawing funds, but not all trading platforms require this. Independent deposit and withdrawal projects, deposit and withdrawal aggregators, and cryptocurrency ATMs are more decentralized and free. However, centralized trading platforms and large OTC platforms support relatively more types of legal currencies because they have more legal and technical resources.
In terms of deposit and withdrawal methods for paying and receiving money, they are limited to wire transfers, ACH transfers, debit/credit cards, and third-party payments (such as Google or Apple). However, some trading platforms, such as FTX, support the conversion of cryptocurrency within the platform into legal currency and transfer it to the receiving account through wire transfer. This brings great convenience to users while avoiding the possibility of receiving black money on OTC or decentralized platforms.
However, there are frictions in the exchange process between legal currency and cryptocurrency, such as exchange rate fees, distributor bonuses, blockchain network fees, etc. Generally speaking, the fewer levels of distributors, the smaller the friction. Therefore, in terms of friction loss, CEX=OTC<Independent Project<Aggregator.
Centralized trading platforms are the most commonly used legal currency deposit and withdrawal platforms. They generally have remittance licenses in most countries around the world, support the most types of legal currencies and cryptocurrencies, and have the lowest rates. However, CEXs can provide cryptocurrency payment services to achieve another form of withdrawal. For example, Binance's Binance Pay can be used to book hotels, purchase shopping cards, etc. CEX itself has a large number of secondary trading users, so it is less difficult to convert them into deposit and withdrawal customers.
Independent deposit and withdrawal projects (such as Moonpay, Transak, Wyre) operate like small trading platforms, but most of them only provide fiat currency deposit and withdrawal services. Their interactive interfaces are simple and easy to use, and user learning costs are low. However, these projects will have distribution bonuses.
Deposit and withdrawal aggregators (such as TransitSwap, KyberSwap, MetaMask's legal currency deposit service), as the name suggests, aggregate various independent deposit and withdrawal projects and CEX to achieve the optimal exchange rate, and collect commissions from them. But the most important thing is that they can introduce functions such as DEX, liquid staking and NFT markets to achieve one-stop deposit and withdrawal and Swap/Staking services.
The most commonly used OTC model is the P2P model, where buyers and sellers directly conduct legal currency deposit and withdrawal transactions. Some platforms, such as Binance P2P, have to use third parties to eliminate trust costs to match buyers and sellers, and charge very low fees. However, P2P means that payment methods can be relatively diverse. In theory, as long as both buyers and sellers agree, transactions can be conducted in any way. However, the risk is also obvious, that is, you may passively participate in money laundering, resulting in your card being frozen, or even being forced to return the funds obtained from the withdrawal.
Web3 DAPP：
1. Tools
Tool applications have the greatest potential as Web.0 traffic portals among the three sectors. Tool applications are not only improvements based on Web2, but also innovations across the ages. Like DeBox (social payment platform), Monaco (instant social media), and Skiff (collaborative work platform), they essentially add the Token economy based on Web2 applications, and realize privacy, transparency, and decentralization based on blockchain. Trust, so they are all dubbed "Web3 xx" - Web3 WeChat, Web30. Weibo, Web3 Google Docs, in other words, they do not provide an incentive for users to abandon the current Web2 and completely switch to Web3 , but uses Token to motivate users to use it briefly. Therefore, we will focus on the role of DEX, NFT and copyright trading platforms as Web3 portals in the following article.
（1）DEX
DEX DAPP plays a vital role in the process of users entering Web3. In the past, users had to go to CEX when switching between different assets, because the order book trading platform on the chain was far less deep than CEX. When AMM DEX appeared, the role of market maker was removed, the depth of on-chain transactions was greatly improved, and the birth of liquidity mining further optimized the trading experience of AMM DEX. The existence of DEX allows users imported by other DAPPs to directly convert the obtained Tokens into stable currencies such as USDT and USDC on the chain to lock in profits.
But the problem with AMM DEX is that there is no market maker. When the depth of an LP pool is insufficient, or when users make large transactions, it will cause huge slippage. Take the cUSDC incident that occurred on September 28 as an example: a user sold cUSDC worth 1.5 million U on UniswapV2, but because cUSDC had basically no liquidity, he only sold about 520U.
（2）NFT Marketplace
NFT (Non-fungible Token), as a new asset form based on blockchain, is a good traffic entrance for Web3. When Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold for a sky-high price of $69m, people began to realize the value of digital assets, and it also gave birth to a large number of NFT-related projects, such as the Metaverse sector represented by Sandbox and Decentraland, BAYC and CryptoPunks Represented by the PFP sector, as well as NBA Top Shot. Later, some copyright NFTs such as IP copyright, patent copyright, music copyright, etc. appeared to help creators confirm their rights and interests.
NFTs are the most easily understood form of crypto-asset by the public. The value of a painting is not just on the canvas, but the art itself, so digital paintings also have their value. Compared with traditional paintings, NFT is more shareable and can well satisfy users' desire to show off. Therefore, PFP-type NFTs came into being, and CryptoPunks, as a representative of Crypto OG, automatically earned the title of Crypto Native for those who own it. BAYC hopes to build a club that breaks the GAP between mainstream culture and Web3. It has also become a symbol of reputation and status because of the participation of stars or well-known organizations such as stars Curry, Jay Chou, JJ Lin, and even China's Li Ning.
Different from PFP, Sandbox and Decentraland are recognized by major international companies who bought their land at high prices to enter the metaverse. Their land can be used as a brand display platform to attract customers for the company. On the contrary, its inherent customers will also understand Web3 through this. and the metaverse. Similarly, NBA Top Shot also introduced the original NBA audience to Web3 through NFT, and then used the wealth creation effect to attract more people to enter, further increasing the price and reputation. Similarly, copyright NFT imports the audience in the creator field to Web3 through the participation of creators, which not only gives creators more sources of income, but also facilitates investors or fans to invest in or collect the copyright of works.
As the core place for NFT value-added, NFT Marketplace, such as Opensea, Rarible, and SuperRare, just like DEX for most DAPPs, gives users the possibility to make profits on NFT and guides users to do more interactive behaviors on Web3. On its basis, the derived NFT lending platform, NFT fragmentation platform, and NFT transaction aggregator all serve as tools to assist users in entering Web3.
2. Social
Domain names and DeSoc under the DID concept are typical entrances in Web3 applications. Similar to traditional DNS domain names and social media, they can directly carry and convert user traffic, using "pretty accounts" and "information" as tools to acquire users. The global domain name registration market size in 2020 was 374 million, and according to a Messari research report, the number of ENS (Ethereum Domain Name Service) registrations reached a record high of 1.12 million in the third quarter. When we compare the user numbers of Medium and Mirror, we can also find that Medium has 25 million monthly visitors, while Mirror only has 2.1 million. It can be seen that as the entrance to Web3, domain names and DeSoc have more than 10 times the potential.
(1) Domain name
Web3 domain names convert complex addresses (such as Vitalik Buterin address: 0xAb5801a7D398351b8bE11C439e05C5B3259aeC9B) into readable characters (Vitalik.eth), which greatly reduces the operating threshold of addresses as interactive objects during the recognition and input process, and at the same time, the meaning of readable characters to users Additional value can be assigned to the address (e.g. year of birth, name, brand name, etc.). The current domain name is still in the early stages of its ecology, and the address can only be simply replaced with short characters. However, we can still see users who change their Twitter name to xx.eth, breaking the identity barrier between Web2 and Web3. "xx.eth" means all the on-chain data associated with this address within the ETH ecosystem. In other words, it records the "lifetime" of this address. When it is applied to the Web2 world, it is equivalent to putting it in the Web3 world. All interactions are brought in, and Web2 users can locate the same "person" based on this name.
With the development of domain names, in addition to .eth, there are also .ether, and domain names based on other public chains, such as BSC’s .bnb, Aptos’ .apt, Evmos’ .evmos, and those issued by companies focusing on multi-chain domain names. Domain names, such as .bit for DAS, .nft for Unstoppable Domains, .crypto, .dao, etc. Twitterscan is also expanding the relevance of domain names to Twitter. But in terms of practicality and recognition, no one can match .eth at present, because ETH still occupies a dominant position in terms of user volume and capital. Other domain names are mostly expected to temporarily attract users through airdrops, but cannot retain users for a long time.
(2) DeSoc
In May 2022, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, economist Glen Weyl and Flashbots researcher Puja Ohlhaver jointly published the article "Decentralized Society: Looking for the Soul of Web3". As a result, the term DeSoc has become very popular. The DeSoc in this article is based on Soulbound Token (SBT). In essence, it wants to construct a reputable decentralized society through the non-tradability and DID of SBT. . At present, the mainstream applications of Web3 are still concentrated in the financial field, such as increasing fund utilization, faster and safer transactions, more complex derivatives, etc. DeSoc can change the current over-financialized state of Web3 and lead us towards a "more transformative, diverse, social-distance-crossing, and increasing-return future."
Taking the current popular DAPP as an example, task platform applications such as Galxe and Quest3 convert the project's needs into a series of tasks and issue corresponding SBT as proof. Users can obtain SBT by completing tasks and wait for the project's later airdrops. . Many of these tasks only require users to interact in Web2, such as Twitter, Discord, and Telegram, which can attract a large number of Web2 users to Web3 through the money-making effect.
Another intuitive case should be Binance's SBT - BAB. It uses BAB to import user traffic that has passed KYC into BSC, and uses airdrops for BAB to retain users. At the same time, it develops projects based on BAB, such as Lifeform. cc, which requires users to have BAB before they can claim their game character Token LBT.
3. Entertainment
Entertainment Web3 applications are an important part of the industry. Among such APPs or DAPPs, GameFi is the most important category. Compared with other Web3 portals, GameFi has a natural advantage, that is, it can serve a large number of users within a certain period of time. It has huge appeal, including a large number of traditional Web2 users. Among today's mainstream GameFi games, there are a large number of mature classic games from the Web2 era that have been modified using the Web3 method, which means that GameFi is born with excellent game-breaking capabilities.
GameFi, which exploded last year due to the attention of Axie Infinity, has become one of the most important tracks in the Web3 field. The number of active players on the chain has remained at around one million for a long time. GameFi is concentrated on the three public chains of BSC ETH POLYGON. The "X to earn" concept derived from this, taking this year's popular creative outdoor Web3 game StepN invested by Binance as an example, also represents the latest new entertainment trend in the Web3 field. In addition, there are still many types of entertainment apps or DAPPs, such as imitation short video APPs, dating software, etc. All the above new generation Web3 applications are mainly oriented towards user profit, supplemented by gameplay, and have strong ability to break through the circle. This main type of application means that GameFi in the Web3 era has more mature gameplay and traffic attraction than other entrances.
Although current entertainment applications still have a series of problems such as high performance requirements for the public chain due to too many interactive operations on the chain, the overall shortcomings are not hidden, and phenomenal entertainment applications are emerging one after another, such as Axie Infinity, RACA, and StepN. For outside traffic, some use traditional EOA wallets, and some, such as StepN, use a centralized app to divert traffic and then guide users to register for wallets with built-in entrances. These measures have greatly helped these GameFi traffic. Introduce and convert new comprehensive Web3 users.
Thoughts on Web3 applications:
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, we currently divide Web3 application portals into two categories: account system and DAPP. These two types of entrance situations have their own advantages and disadvantages: for account system entrances, this entrance method is more like a face-to-point process. Users first deposit money through the centralized account system path and create own account system, and then radiate from the account system (such as trading platform, wallet, etc.) to points (Web3 applications such as DAPP). This is a more traditional traffic entry method at present.
Due to the maturity of this type of entrance, the deposit system is relatively complete and convenient, and users can have full choice and freedom. The disadvantage is that the categories of attracting traffic are relatively single and one-sided, and it is impossible to make targeted decisions for different groups of people. Different policy configurations. For the Web3 DAPP type entrance, this is more like a point-to-surface radiation. Traffic often enters through the point (Web3 DAPP) and then enters the larger Web3 ecosystem. This method can give full play to the subjective characteristics of different types of DAPP. Advantages, attracting their own target traffic, such as some specific NFT Marketplace and the once popular Axie Infinity, both attract a large amount of outside traffic through the influence of DAPP itself.
At present, account system entrances have a long history and are more mature. For example, users of trading platforms still account for the majority of Web3 users, and wallets are also a necessity for entering Web3. But now more and more situations show that the outstanding leading DAPP or Web3 application in the track, because of the huge advantages of independent huge traffic blessing, already have the ability and foundation to skip the trading platform and wallet entrance, and have begun to establish their own independent The APP or application side serves as the entrance.
This type of Web3 DAPP represents a more emerging trend and deserves our attention. But in any case, both of them still face some similar problems at the same time. For example, the entry barrier of the Web3 world is still much higher than that of the Web2 world. They are constantly working to eliminate such obstacles while giving full play to their own advantages.
4. Prospects for future portals of Web3
StepN, as the representative project of this year's traffic explosion, although a series of plans have been temporarily shelved due to various reasons in subsequent operations and the general environment, at the current development stage of the Web3 industry, the eye-catching capabilities and popularity of popular applications born in the industry have Judging from their traffic aggregation capabilities, they have created conditions for them to create their own independent entrance with huge traffic in a short period of time. After achieving initial success, they are not satisfied with the opening of the game market, but want to use the traffic entrance to develop Launchpad, DEX and even more DAPPs are a series of metaverse pictures surrounding the Stepn ecology. I have to say that this is a very imaginative move. The author believes that this is also the way for many entrepreneurs who are not satisfied with Web3 APPs or DAPPs to rise. StepN copied the development path of wallets and at least opened up an idea, that is, it hopes to use its peak traffic to develop the ecosystem and retain traffic. Such a move made Web3 entrepreneurs realize that this path is not only possible for wallets, but also for APPs. DAPP and even future developers of various traffic captures can try this.
Recently, MOOAR, a new NFT trading platform owned by Find Satoshi Lab, the parent company of StepN, is about to be launched. Although the project failed to fully adopt the original idea, StepN at least set an example.
We believe that the reason why the traffic of such short-term hot-selling applications can escape the gravity of trading platforms and wallets and obtain independent traffic is only phased. In other words, the industry’s dividend period is limited. This is true for both users and entrepreneurs. We believe that this is only due to the immature or uneven ecological development of the Web3 field. When the industry matures, this phenomenon will gradually disappear and precious traffic resources will be concentrated in a few Several leading applications.
This is just like during the period of rapid development of the Internet, both the application side and the traffic entrance can allow a hundred flowers to bloom. However, in today's mature industry stage, most services and even functions have been concentrated on a few leading APPs. Small and medium-sized applications will either die or be eliminated. Integration is not just the result of capital operation. We believe that the most fundamental reason is that this is in line with human nature. As users, we cannot enter through complicated entrances for a long time, and traffic will always tend to be facilitated and one-stop integrated entrances. , this may be the inevitable result of the demand on the product side. Web3 era applications that focus on the concept of decentralization may be able to decentralize the back-end, but the front-end still cannot escape the gravity of user habits, and user habits are difficult to decentralize. .
Therefore, we believe that in this situation, the future Web3 traffic entrance, whether it is the account system type or the DAPP type method of Web3, should still be concentrated in a small number, and should conform to the form of radiation from surface to point. Specifically, judging from the current situation, trading platforms and wallets are currently the most powerful and most likely terminators to achieve this successful outcome. If CEX and wallets can seize the current golden period of traffic and develop products that adapt to user habits And the entrance to the usage environment should be able to greatly improve its dominance in terms of traffic. For example, the drop-down mini program interface in the main interface of the Binance trading platform that integrates various APP and DAPP entrances. In the author's opinion, this is a very worthwhile learning attempt.
We believe that concentrating traffic entrances on a few leading applications is the most likely industry model in the future mature stage of the industry (currently, the entrances to trading platforms and wallets are the closest to this), and this traffic grabbing method does not violate Web3. Decentralization and respect for individual users, because their backend is still built on the entire decentralized approach. Based on the spirit of decentralization, it is worth thinking about whether there are better and better solutions for traffic entry in the future that can further optimize this centralized traffic entry method.
In addition, Musk has recently completed the acquisition of Twitter. As the world's largest Web2 social network and a huge entrance carrying the entire Internet traffic, it is worth looking forward to reforming Twitter's Web3 approach. Musk may target Twitter. To carry out major reforms, whether such a huge Web2 and traditional Internet behemoth will carry out Web.0 reforms, in what specific ways, to what extent the reforms will be carried out, and what profound impact these will have on the traffic entrance are all important questions. It is worth pondering. Assuming that Twitter can carry out decentralized reforms or be compatible with a large number of applications in the Web3 industry, it may break the current distribution pattern of Web3 traffic. We believe this must be an epoch-making event, let us wait and see.
*Source; rhythm
*Original title: "OP Research: Wallet vs CEX vs DAPP, who is the traffic king of Web3? 》Original author: CloudY, Sihan
*Original editor: Vincero, YL, DoctorStrange
*Copyright belongs to the original author
*The reprinted content is only for learning and exchange, not investment advice.