The Future of Community is On-Chain

Web2 platforms like Facebook and X capture >30% of creator revenue via opaque algorithms and ads. Communities are locked-in data products, not stakeholders.

• Value Extraction: Ad revenue flows to platforms, not communities.
• Zero Portability: Reputation and connections are siloed.
• Governance Theater: Top-down control masquerades as user input.

Smart contracts transform community logic into verifiable code. Projects like Farcaster Frames and Lens Protocol demonstrate on-chain social graphs.

• Direct Monetization: Native tokens and NFTs enable fee-per-action models.
• Composable Reputation: On-chain activity becomes a portable credit score for DeFi and governance.
• Automated Incentives: Code distributes rewards and permissions without intermediaries.

$30B+ is managed via DAO treasuries (e.g., Uniswap, Aave). This is capital coordination at a scale impossible with traditional corporate structures.

• Transparent Cash Flows: Every proposal and payment is on-chain, auditable by all.
• Global Participation: Voting is permissionless, breaking geographic and regulatory silos.
• Experiment Velocity: New funding models like retroactive public goods funding emerge natively.

Static NFTs are being replaced by dynamic, verifiable credentials. Galxe, Orange Protocol, and Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) create a web of trust.

• Sybil Resistance: Proof-of-personhood and activity graphs filter bots.
• Context-Specific Roles: A user's contribution in Optimism governance can grant access in Arbitrum DeFi.
• Data as Asset: Users own and can license their own reputation data.

Fully on-chain games and worlds (Dark Forest, Loot) require persistent, unstoppable state. This demands dedicated scaling via Layer 3s and app-chains (e.g., Arbitrum Orbit, OP Stack).

• Sovereign Rules: Community defines its own consensus and upgrade path.
• Micro-Economies: Native tokens facilitate billions of micro-transactions.
• Composable Assets: In-game items are DeFi collateral on other chains.

The distinction between user and platform dissolves. Successful protocols (e.g., Uniswap, Compound) are governed by their most active users. The community is the product, the owner, and the beneficiary.

• Aligned Incentives: Token value accrues directly to engaged participants.
• Permissionless Innovation: Anyone can build atop the communal state and rules.
• Antifragile Systems: Attacks strengthen the protocol through fork-and-iterate responses.

The Problem: Open-source developers starve while creating foundational infrastructure. The Solution: A retroactive funding mechanism that rewards value creation after the fact, aligning incentives for the long-term health of the Superchain ecosystem.

• $100M+ distributed across three rounds to date.
• Futarchy-inspired voting markets for better allocation.
• Creates a positive-sum flywheel for core protocol development.

The Problem: Social platforms are walled gardens with extractive business models. The Solution: Embeddable, interactive mini-apps inside social casts, turning any post into a gateway for on-chain actions via Farcaster and OP Stack.

• Enables one-click minting, voting, and commerce.
• ~2M+ frames launched, demonstrating viral product-market fit.
• Proves social graphs can be protocol-owned and composable.

The Problem: Grant programs are monolithic, inefficient, and lack accountability. The Solution: A modular protocol stack for community funding, allowing anyone to spin up a tailored grants program with custom voting, distribution, and strategy layers.

• $50M+ in total value distributed through the ecosystem.
• Decouples strategy (who gets funds) from management (how funds are sent).
• **Integrates with Safe{Wallet} and IPFS for transparent, resilient operations.

The Problem: Over-engineered DAO tooling creates governance paralysis and high overhead. The Solution: A return to first principles with minimal, auditable smart contracts that do one thing well: pool capital and vote on its allocation.

• Inspired DAOhaus, UMA's oSnap, and a generation of lean DAOs.
• Ragequit mechanism ensures continuous capital alignment.
• Proves that less code equals fewer exploits and more decisive action.

Communities are held hostage by centralized platforms (Discord, Twitter) that can de-platform, change APIs, and capture all value. User identity and reputation are siloed and non-portable.

• Platforms control the data and the rules, creating existential risk.
• No composable reputation means starting from zero in every new community.
• Value accrues to shareholders, not to the most active contributors.

On-chain membership tokens (NFTs, SBTs, ERC-20s) turn community participation into a verifiable, ownable, and tradable asset. Projects like Friends with Benefits (FWB) and Nouns DAO are the blueprint.

• Membership is permissionless and global, governed by code, not a central admin.
• Reputation and contribution history are portable assets (e.g., Galxe, Guild.xyz).
• Treasury and governance are transparent and on-chain, aligning incentives directly.

Traditional 'community' is often a broadcast channel for announcements. Engagement is a vanity metric (likes, retweets) with no tangible stake or consequence for participants.

• Attention is monetized by the platform, not the community.
• No skin in the game leads to low-quality participation and spam.
• Decision-making is opaque, leading to apathy and exit.

Smart contracts automate rewards for valuable actions. Platforms like Coordinape and SourceCred enable peer-to-peer recognition, while Optimism's RetroPGF funds public goods.

• Contributions are automatically tracked and rewarded (e.g., bounties on Layer3).
• Governance votes have real financial weight, forcing informed participation.
• Community becomes a productive economic network, not just a chat room.

Community value (content, software, art) is trapped inside walled gardens. Monetization is limited to ads and subscriptions, with no native ability to build compounding financial ecosystems.

• Value cannot be composed with external DeFi or NFT markets.
• Economic models are one-dimensional (subscribe, donate, advertise).
• No native capital layer for community-owned ventures.

Every community becomes a micro-economy with its own treasury (via Safe), native currency, and ability to launch products. See BanklessDAO's media nodes or Krause House's NBA bid.

• Treasuries fund community projects and investments transparently.
• Native tokens enable internal economies for services, merch, and access.
• Full DeFi composability allows communities to earn yield, borrow, and build together.