Newsletter Issue #7

Welcome to Popula newsletter issue #7! Thank you so much for joining us during the AMA on Thursday this week, the exceptional enthusiasm we saw during the Q&A session was truly inspiring. As we continue to evolve and grow, your support and participation are integral to our community. Stay tuned for more engaging events and updates.

Yours sincerely,

Popula Team

Ecosystem and Industry Insights

Where are the pirate ships, castles, cars, and robots?
- The article reflects on the parallels between the world of Web3 and the experience of playing with LEGO bricks. The author draws attention to the tendency within the crypto space to focus on individual components (bricks), such as dApps, smart contracts, and tokens, while overlooking the importance of assembling these elements into cohesive sets that tell compelling stories. The analogy suggests that, like LEGO sets, blockchain and Web3 projects should focus on the stories they can tell, the utility they provide, and the overall experience rather than solely on individual technological components.
  https://mirror.xyz
  Where are the pirate ships, castles, cars, and robots?
  In a sea of digital composable, inteoperable, decentralized smart contract bricks, where are our crypto castles and pirate ships?
By All Accounts: On Points, Attestations, & Tokens
- At Popula, among the early pioneers in onchain points and the development of the non-transferable fungible token standard, we are delighted to come across this article by Archetype. The article discusses the 2010s gamification trend in consumer technology and its evolution into blockchain and Web3 in the form of points. It emphasizes the compatibility of blockchains with point systems, citing their effectiveness in incentivizing user actions. While acknowledging challenges with high transaction costs for tokens, the article introduces onchain attestations and explores the differences between tokens, offchain, and onchain points. Onchain points are proposed as a new primitive with benefits such as composability, provenance, trust guarantees, Sybil resistance impact, and community accountability. In short, onchain points offer more flexibility and accessibility than tokens. Implementation considerations, including redeemability for ERC20 tokens, are explored, focusing on design decisions to encourage product usage rather than mercenary behaviours. The article concludes by envisioning user-owned networks as the future of the Internet, with onchain points contributing to user identity, ownership, and incentive alignment goals.
  https://archetype.mirror.xyz
  By All Accounts: On Points, Attestations, & Tokens
  Written by Katie Chiou, Graeme Boy
Multi-Hit Wonders: Embracing Apps With Short Shelf Life
- This article by Li Jin explores the challenge for new consumer social apps to compete with giants like Facebook and TikTok. It suggests an alternative approach, advocating for a venture studio model where startups create a series of smaller, transient hits instead of aiming for a massive social giant. This strategy is enabled by crypto’s interoperability and composability, where it makes sense to build a single protocol layer and then plug into it various apps and experiences, even by different teams (like Lens), and enhanced by crypto tokens. If executed well, this strategy allows flexibility, autonomy, and creativity. The author emphasizes quick execution, disciplined funding, and user engagement across different app experiments as key considerations for success. Overall, the article proposes leveraging the dynamics of fleeting attention and niche use cases, uniquely enabled by crypto tokens, as a viable path for consumer builders. This article follows one of Li Jin’s previous pieces, in which she talked about how crypto enables apps to focus on niches because it offers novel ways to monetize without building massive audiences and relying on ads.
  https://www.lisnewsletter.com
  Multi-Hit Wonders: Embracing Apps With Short Shelf Life
  In today's consumer app landscape, aiming for smaller, fleeting hits can be a winning strategy
What builders can learn from RetroPGF 3: separating the signal from the noise
- Another reflection on public goods and Optimism RetroPGF3. The article discusses the findings of the fund's allocation, examining distribution patterns and signalling in the Optimism ecosystem. It notes the surge in OP token prices, a shift in distribution patterns from power law to a "peanut butter spread," and emphasizes the dominance of open-source software projects in receiving funding. The analysis highlights domains like GitHub contributions, developer libraries, and OP Mainnet contributions, evaluating their impact on allocation. The author suggests the need for better curation in diverse categories, explores the challenges in assessing individual contributions, and calls for identifying impactful signals for future rounds, emphasizing the Optimism Collective's focus on this objective.
  https://mirror.xyz
  What builders can learn from RetroPGF 3
  Optimism's latest RetroPGF 3 did a lot of things well, but it needs to get better at signaling where in the value chain builders should focus their energy.

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Popula Spotlights and Community Updates

AMA with NEAR Vietnam Hub

Thank you so much for joining us this week! Hosted by @trongnear in the NEAR Vietnam Hub Telegram Group, the session delved into the intriguing theme: "From Online to Onchain - How Popula is Changing the Community Landscape." The discussion covered a range of key points, which included a brief overview of Popula, the use cases of Drips, and the necessity of onchain communities. The conversation also explored how Popula's versatile tools cater to various communities and provided updates on recent and upcoming features and milestones. The Q&A session saw active participation from the NEAR Vietnam community, which demonstrated exceptional enthusiasm. Questions ranged from tokenomics and challenges to security, community involvement, and the potential integration of AI with Popula. This engaging session exemplifies the dynamic onchain experiences that Popula is committed to delivering to our community.

Upcoming Campaigns

Popula is committed to delivering more engaging events that bring dynamic onchain experiences to our community. Our Lunar New Year campaign on Arkana is scheduled to launch soon. Keep an close eye on our channels for upcoming announcements and detailed information!

Community of the Week

gojo academy: Gojo Academy is a lively community with a passion for anime. Members gather to share the latest web 3 news and enjoy fun-filled moments. The community is dedicated to promoting collaboration and knowledge exchange. Whether you want to share information, learn something new, or just have a good time, join the community now!