Panel Session IV: Onchain data or Community-led Models: Which works Better for Today's Market?

Welcome to this session of the web three legos conference and my name is Anella Messi and I'll be the moderator for this session. So and we'll be discussing a very very interesting topic on onchain data or communityled growth models. So which one works better for today's market? And so if you're a builder, this would relate directly to what you are doing. And I would like to retrace that builders are not just developers, but builders are people contributing to the ecosystem, whatever it is that you're doing because I mean all of us are trying to make sure that the ecosystem grows, right?

So stay attentive and let's learn. So I'm passing the mic. Okay, there's a mic there already. So start with Mara ladies first. So, introduce yourself, what you do, and let's get to meet you.

All right. Hi everyone. My name is Amara Arici. You can also call me Marablo. I'm a community and marketing manager.

I'm currently working as um the operations lead for Influx AI. Thank you. Can we clap for her please? Thank you so much.

Hello. Hello everyone. Um my name is um Anon Webb 3 and I currently of course support um with product advisory and GTM strategy at B West Africa. Um yeah nice meeting you and nice on stage.

All right thank you so much. So we just have two question each for all of our speakers and then we have one general question for both of them and so if you have any question let us know. So I'll try to make sure that this session we keep the time. All right. So the first question is going to anon of web 3 and I want to ask can you share an example of a web 3 product or project where the community literally make the product succeed.

Okay. So uh one major one major um product would I would I call it product or should I would I say like even on an ecosystem level uh that would be biz um and of course the most recent that many people must have seen is the base app right um we can practically say that uh the the the base app by all means necessary has actually like grown the way it has grown because of uh the community push So the product was engineered in such a way that um community has a big advantage. Um so far they have like major roles to play and so the base app can be one major product within the web three space um that we would put on this table.

H so audience do you guys agree with him? Do you guys agree with him? All right. So thank you so much. So um over to you Mara.

So um what role should storytelling play in connecting onchain insights with real community adoption? All right. So um before I actually answer that question right I I actually started this space when I joined the web 3 space I learned about D5 web 3 and I actually found out that it was quite difficult for people to understand or get on boarded into the web 3 space as someone who was who was active and still is very actively very active in the space on boarding people. So I noticed that storytelling is the best and simplest way to build trust and relatability between people. So not only is it good or is it the best for education and on boarding, it's also the best way to convey whatever fact it is that you have to people for them to be able to relate with you.

So I can go through there are so many onchain analytic tools like you know doing analytics ch analysis token token terminal and the rest of them right I can actually see oh okay we have 10,000 users right I can just go to Twitter and say oh 10,000 people are already using our already written our protocol which is just fact right but I can actually communicate with them or communicate to them in a very different way something like oh 10,000 people actually trusted us to had their first defy experience with us and this is something people can connect with. This is something people can relate with. So storytelling helps with simplicity, storytelling helps with impact, it helps with relatability. Yeah. Thank you.

So actually what I wanted to just like reiterate there is that if not for only communities, not for only products, even personally yourself. Look at the example she made. She said you can say 10,000 people already using our product and 10,000 people already trusted our product. Can you see the difference between the two? So, and one will be more credible when you are reporting to probably someone maybe your boss or someone or even people outside there that listening to what you are saying.

Thank you very much. Can you clap for Mara? Thank you so much. Okay. So, um to you, canchain data ever replace human center community building or must they always coexist?

Um so I I I know like there is um a lot of hype around um you know what data is at the moment and it makes a lot of sense actually um because if you if you had to look at things um coming coming from like my background as not just being um you know a marketing person I'm actually like a marketing person who comes from a psychology background right and um one of the things that I've actually discovered is that humans lie. Like we we know how to lie, right?

That's serious.

And um so so you you know I was I was having a discussion outside even before I came up and and it was somebody telling me that oh um he had a conversation with some people they got feedback about 100 people like filled the feedback form saying they were so so interested in the product and all of that. By the time the product was going to go live

he had just one user.

Wow.

Just one. And and and you know this would be from the point of like uh how that oh you you rely heavily on oh let me go around and you know just ask people and and so data plays a major role because you're able to see okay people people say they are not trading but the data on the back end is showing that a lot of trading activities are going on. So would it be that we now say we want to go with community and leave data alone or we want to go with data and leave community alone. I wouldn't say we should leave anyone. they have to coexist like so the way I see it and the way I would actually put it would be that um data allows you to be able to see things in real time uh like on a short-term basis and then if you're able to like engineer and work with that data you can actually like use it to know what direction to go with your community and so it allows you to play more long-term game so you can say oh um you know like data allows me to place a food here but um you know community allows me to have many more meals to bring to the table so that's practically just That's amazing.

Thank you so much for that. Please a round of applause for our speaker. So, um it's done for you. All right. So, now back to you've done I've known Maria for a while.

She has worked with community. She has done partnerships. So, do you seen onchain analysis influencing decision around scaling, product scaling and all of that?

Okay. So there's um if you are an arent follower of seasoned of Binance on Twitter, you know that he makes one very very important statement, verify before you trust. Now not only does that apply to you making your research whenever you want to buy a token and all of that, whatever thing it is that you do in this space in this ecosystem, you need to make your research. You need to verify before you actually trust. The reason why I'm actually saying that is because a lot of things goes on on social media, especially crypto Twitter, right?

We'll see a lot of people making hype. You'll see an ecosystem popping up and there are already people making hype. But when you go back, when you go behind the scenes to, you know, run your data check, you'll see that it's just noise. And if you don't verify that, if you don't verify whatever information it is you're seeing on crypto Twitter, it will actually be bricks bring a bad sign to your company because let's say I work for a brand or currently working for influx and I want to do partnerships. I'm going to currently if if um influx is actually being built on base, right?

And B when you check um the total value locked when you check the wallet activities and the important metrics that you're supposed to check you'll see that B is actually B actually has a whole lot of volume right now let's say um I don't want to mentioning it but let's say I want to reach out to another brand that I want to or another protocol that I want to you know partner with they will give me a very beautiful pitch deck right they will give me a lot of like numbers I will go on Twitter I'll see a lot people communicating and interacting with them. But when I let's say I go to doing analytics or I decide to like check through Nancy or decide to even run a normal basic um it scan um check I would realize that I might actually realize that it doesn't align what they are saying is not the truth. So it helps you when it comes to partnership it it helps you and it it also brings about transparency. So it helps you make the right decisions that would bring value to your brand and not just inflicted metrics. Then when it comes to scaling adoption now onchain data would help you know where um where adoption is actually happening the most which region is actually adopting what you're building or which ecosystem or which which users are actually making use of your product the most.

So onchain data helps right but I'll also say that they are just um it helps you make the right decision but how you use the information or the data you have is another thing entirely. So they both like the kaboko exist. All right thank you so much. So um the final question for my panelist. So also Samara so looking at the next two to three years do you think onchain data would take the driver seat for growth?

I mean you've spoken about it but or will community remain the main differentiator in web3 adoption.

Sorry please go again with that question.

Okay. Looking in the next two to three years do you think onchain data will take the driver seat for growth or you think communities remain the main differentiator when it comes to adoption?

I think both of them cannot do without each other. Actually I have already said that when I answered that I think both of them cannot do with each other because we can have numbers we can have facts then how do we use these numbers how do we convert these numbers that we have so they both coexist and no verb three what's your point what's your POV

so so like just like um Mara said it would be that uh we actually look at things from what we are currently seeing now right and I I I think at some point the moment we started to see um certain systems come up um probably to just help with attribution and all of those different things like that. So as I would always say we are moving into a phase where um we will practically not be able to push for any differentiation between web 2 and web 3 right and once that fully kicks in what would happen is data would practically want to be like a major part of what we want to be working with because you can look at the the the current structure of marketing in web 2. You would see that what we heavily rely on is data. We do not do we don't do community stuff like you know when we look at web two stuff. Yeah.

And the reason why that is happening is because you see in web three um I used to say something in web three like the the focus is majorly on community and trust right not um you know

community trust adoption

like practically that like that's that's what it's all about right it's not about oh um somebody's doing this or oh these are the people in this audience or like you know all of those things but we are moving into that phase you understand and so I I I I would say that because web three is still having a major part of it still heavily communityincclined. Um even in two three years we would not exactly see any one of them push themselves away from each other. Right? What we'll be seeing is that they find a way to actually align with themselves. So what would happen is we will now have we now start having better campaigns being done because data will now be a major advantage.

Do you understand? So I'm not going to just be saying oh I feel like um you know I feel like B is doing well um because like somebody said somebody said something about B or this person said something about B. Now it will be that I am able to look on the back end and say oh we have this number of products you know actually springing up right. Um for me now like I I I think in the last six weeks we have spoken to more than more than 60 products. Yeah.

On um you know like on the back end at base and one of the things that we we have seen different things like from a data perspective and now we are using that data to now see okay how can we get better results for these people because they are also community members. So it's about like you know them working together at the end of the day.

Wow. So it's a round of applause. Yeah. I think I also want to add something to what Anon said like in this space data is very very important right and I'm saying this I'm going to give um something happened um few weeks ago all right on Twitter there's something called yapping on Twitter for those who know what it is and there is also a yapping platform called Kao AI now um before Kai actually came up the usual way for marketing with Kos is that oh you have a large number of followers and um people are actually engaging your tweets which may actually not be real people but people who are who are actually like botted accounts right and currently we have um platforms like Kao AI we have um world chain that can actually be used to verify and check if influencers or kos are actually used are very legit now I'm saying this because Kito actually provides data to all these to projects for them to know good influencers for them to use. I think the question he asked me when he came to my DM was oh I would like you to like you know talk about my project on your page and I'm like what let me see your project because I actually do filter this project and then the next thing I was like okay the next thing he asked me was I should send my Kito profile to him.

So he wants he wanted to see how many yaps I have I had and um my basically everything about my Twitter page will be on Kai and I told him okay no problem. So this is just going ahead to say that data is important but how you also use it matters the most.

Thank you so much. Please a round of applause for them. So I want to say a big thank you to my panelists for your powerful insights. It is clear that both onchain data and communityled growth has to go hand in hand. But the magic actually happens when they work together.

That's just the honest truth of what this panel session is all about. So if you're a builder, if you're a founder or anyone, the key no takeaway is that you should use data to guide you, right? But never forget that we have people behind the numbers. Thank you very much. And that's all for this panel session.