Decentralized community incentives

A blockchain-native communication platform could foster collaboration between decentralized community members while allowing them to build their digital identity with their contributions. Decentralized communities could host hubs for their members, where each tokenized community features a Discourse-like discussion board.

The problem: Decentralized communities are missing a native coordination layer

The current coordination infrastructure used by decentralized communities relies too heavily on traditional solutions. Solutions that look like enterprise SaaS instead of multiplayer. Why is that?

For once, the lack of alternatives makes the switch impossible. Communication tools like Discourse and Discord have been filling the gap for crypto communities with increasing numbers of apps and bots to power their communities or API calls to offer their centralized content.

We all know what happens when the tools we use depend too heavily on centralized players (See Aave Founder being blocked by Twitter or Bankless being blocked by Youtube).

Crypto-native communities deserve crypto-native software. User databases are siloed, there is no cross-chain reputation and solutions are missing on new frontiers enabled by crypto.

Decentralized communities remove the barrier for billions of internet users to trust and coordinate capital with anyone on the internet. More crypto-first coordination tools are required.

A user on the MakerDAO Discourse.

The same user on multiple Discourse forums will lose all this information and start from scratch.

A potential solution: Incentives on the social graph

A decentralized communication layer on top of the onchain social graph could add social, collaborative, and productivity components that, otherwise, would exist in different off-chain silos. Tools for feedback, voting and decision-making would emerge for every user.

An implementation could leverage Lens protocol to create a place where community members share and discuss relevant resources for the community. Some information would live on the blockchain while other data could be stored in IPFS.

Vision

Social protocols will define how people organize and how culture flows by allowing digital-age coordination at scale. Open social graphs are the crypto-native approach to re-architecting the traditional tech stack.

Moving from Enabler to Grower

Community tooling has evolved immensely in the past years. But there is a clear distinction to make when it comes to incentives. Tools designed as "Growers" help contributors take the next step, with modules to increase the value of the end-user.

The ability to own your contributions and bring your badges with you means that people can build their reputation on their own terms. The days of waiting for someone else to decide whether or not you are worthy of recognition are over.

With an open state database, everyone can see who has contributed what, how often they contribute, and how much value those contributions have created for others. This approach was not possible before because it would take too long for someone else to verify the validity of one's contributions using conventional methods like peer review or other forms of verification by third parties.

Technical considerations

Building on Polygon makes sense due to its low-cost transactions. Even with Ethereum rollups where transaction costs are over $1, low-value transactions such as following and upvoting would not be economical.

Content management protocols like Ceramic (content storage on top of IPFS) and Lit Protocol (privacy via content access control) could manage and store content file data.

Using a social graph protocol like Lens allows the use of implemented core primitives in a composable fashion.

Lens is extendable and EVM compatible, which means that developers can add features on top of the core primitives. This approach is clearly distinct from social graph protocols like DeSO and the full stack application gm.xyz

Growth strategy

A strategic starting point would be in the discussion for protocol-based communities. Protocol communities are the most resilient and active in the ecosystem.

Developing liquidity over scale early on matters. Building enough value for crucial communities to migrate operations to another platform at once.

Key features

On-chain interactions bring novel ways to interact with community members. This is a novel approach to community aligned metrics where contributors can prove and benefit from being actively involved. Developing an on-chain reputation through these interactions plays a key role for participants of any digital economy.

Unlike applications like Discourse that monetize through subscriptions, a blockchain-native platform isn't limited to the direct selling of licenses or subscriptions. Modules could be pre-configured to serve different functions, such as targeted airdrops based on the social graph, sentiment analysis on the community or access to gated sections.

Communities have to rely on tools like SourceCred to encourage and activate their community by rewarding their most active users. Opening up collaborators to earn cash implies that economic value is not derived from speculation, but rather from commerce. This evolves into tipping capabilities or even curate-to-earn dynamics.

Once the social graph is formed, the relationships are unforkable, which cements the social graph in the network and attracts other protocols to service the revenues.

Challenges

There is no doubt about how powerful open social graphs are. Owning your engagement and identity is a no-brainer for anyone starting the journey in decentralized networks. There are 2 challenges that need to be overcome:

• Technological challenges. Any meaningful social network would produce significant transaction amounts that far exceed the current chain throughput. Because with Lens the state of every retweet, post comment, etc, is a transaction, there needs to be a sustainable model of gasless transactions through relayers. There are some open questions whether subnets or token incentives can balance out these costs.
• User Experience. Blockchain apps have long relied heavily on the desktop experience. But mobile is by far the preferred way to access communication. Finding the optimal balance between connecting identities and engagement in decentralized communities will revolve around clean and intuitive products.