Web3 communities are exploding. More than $30B [1] worth of assets have been entrusted to DAOs, and more than $24B [2] was spent on NFT sales in 2022. These large pools of capital represent on-chain groups, or communities, from which new collective ownership structures are emerging.
We use the word "community" to describe a group of people who share similar interests, and who are connected via ownership of one or more tokens (DAO governance tokens, NTFs, or even community-based meme tokens). As the on-chain ecosystem develops, new primitives are emerging which change how these groups coordinate. Tokens are no longer limited to representing ownership, they can also enable their holders to perform actions in a privacy-preserving manner.
Web2 gave us the "Like" and "Share". Web3 has given us "Vote", "Mint", "Collect", "Tip" (so far) We are only beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible.
Having participated for several years in various communities, and having led a community myself for over a year, I've experienced firsthand the challenges on-chain communities face. In my experience, being able to ensure that the information being transmitted reaches it's intended recipient, has not been tampered with, and originates from the person/people claiming to be the author is one of the biggest issues facing the core participants of these groups. I would call this a "communications challenge".
This stems from channel fragmentation and poor personal security protocols, the largest risks of which include:
Phishing links
Users impersonating fake accounts on Twitter/Discord/Telegram
Compromised accounts due to poor password management
False information / Misuse of Community Power
Leadership conflicts bleeding into the community creating unsafe spaces
False information posted to large communities resulting in loss of digital assets
Compromised anonymity/pseudo-anonymity
Joining collaboration sessions using Web2 tooling that requires the divulging of email addresses, phone numbers, or other Personal Identifiable Information (PII)
Accountability
Fraudulent projects setup accounts, raise money, make promises, and then delete records of past communications with the community
With the acceleration of AI such as GTP-4 and deepfakes, malicious actors preying on both novices and advanced users will only increase. Thus, the ability to verify that the information you are consuming is displayed as intended and agreed upon by the rules of the community becomes essential for establishing greater trust and making collaborative decisions by the community.
Our answer to these problems is Lighthouse. Our platform empowers community leaders to effectively engage with their members, in a verifiable and trustless way, and deliver actionable content to those who've opted in.
We started as a protocol, and even open sourced a PoC at ETHGlobal Lisbon 2023. However, in talking to everyday users since then, we soon came to the realisation that most people who want to get started are still extremely scared of performing on-chain actions. This led us to the decision to launch a product which can slowly chip away at that fear, and show people that creating and managing a Web3 native community doesn't need to be intimidating.
Unlike traditional consumer social apps focused on transactional Web3 events, Lighthouse serves as a dedicated space for community-centric actions. Our native mobile app presents a streamlined view to minimise voter fatigue [3] allowing for focused participation and serving as an easier entry point to on-chain participation.
For community leaders, Lighthouse makes it simple to configure the who and how of participation in your community.
Should announcements be written to the blockchain so you can build trust with your holders?
Should proposal discussions be public, or limited to token holders only? Or perhaps only open to people who have held their tokens for a certain number of days?
How do you identify who actively participates and reward them?
We even solve logistical challenges; perhaps there is a Town Hall scheduled and you need to remind your holders you are about to go live in 5 minutes!
So how does this differ from other consumer-facing social apps? Where other Web3 Native social apps do a great job focusing on transactional events of Web3, Lighthouse aims to be a hub where you can focus on the actions you care about in specific communities. Think of it as your Discord or Telegram announcements channel, but with additional powers.
We deliver this in an easy to consume format that does not force users to sign up to a mailing list or remember to check for updates on whatever platform the community organizers have picked.
Our goal is to gently introduce new users to the web3 way of thinking, while still allowing power users the ability to verify and unpack the more complicated aspects of web3 interactions
By enabling more communication participation and discussion, we hope to foster stronger communities who are better informed, thus creating a positive feedback loop for even more innovation. As a completely bootstrapped project, we are excited and proud to share with you a glimpse of what the future could be and to begin our journey. We plan to work deeply across the ecosystem making composability and interoperability one of the founding principles of our product.
The platform is live and available to explore at https://testnet.lighthouse.cx. Please check it out, and we look forward to hearing from you!
[1] https://deepdao.io/organizations
[2] https://decrypt.co/118438/2022-versus-2021-nft-sales
[3] https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Decentralized_Autonomous_Organization_Toolkit_2023.pdf
