Religion as a framework for blockchain
By Paul Veradittakit
Compiled by: Block unicorn
Today'sBlockchainIt’s getting close to the “good enough” stage.
The transaction cost has been reduced to less than $0.01 per transaction, and Solana, Avax, Sei, Sui, and L2 On-chain throughput may be sufficient, and manyBlockchainClaims of 10-50K+ transactions per second (TPS) are being processed, but this will only become a significant factor when the TPS limit is reached, which may not occur until the next 3-5 years.wallet(such as Rabby, Zerion and Backpack), the path to a better user experience is now clearly visible.
对于新的一层(L1)和二层(L2),已经很难找到差异化。在实现了这些基本的门槛要求后,一切都变成了争夺关注和「追随者」社群的竞争。The best example is religion, a model of a strong community of followers.
So, how can we become the next religion? How can we become the next BTC/ETH/SOL?
Every religion needs a leader
No one knows that ETH has a genius boy Vitalik, whose blog posts are regarded as the Bible. SOL has Anatoly, who argues with ETH geeks every day on Twitter.
The best example here is probably the most notorious LUNA, a controversial cult leader Do Kwon or DK (RIP) who laughs at every naysayer. Cardano (ADA) is another great example, he streams several times a week from sunny Colorado.
BlockchainThe leaders of BTC have become legendary figures who pass on this ideology and description of future development in the form of white papers. When these legendary figures or leaders die, the ideology becomes stronger. Satoshi Nakamoto is "dead", but the ideology of BTC is stronger than ever. If Vitalik dies, ETH will still exist and thrive as a decentralized world computer.
我发现像大户这样的项目存在一个问题,那就是没有一个中心人物可以崇拜或依靠。这也是 ETH 的二层(L2)陷入困境的原因,他们依赖于 ETH 的神话,但却是现有宗教的追随者。因此,我认为 ETH L2 仍然需要来自 Base x Coinbase 等 这些中心化exchangeConduct strong marketing because theirCommunityIt won't be as powerful as L1.
Every religion needs a near-death moment and a resurrection
Jesus was crucified but rose from the dead. BTC experienced its near-death moment with the Mt Gox hack but then it made a miraculous comeback.ETH in The DAO In the hacking incident (you can read about this hacking incidentWho stole $11 billion in Ethereum?), 14% of ETH is locked incontract中,然后社区提案分叉一条新的 ETH 链,得到了快速复苏,变得更加强大。SOL 与 FTX 紧密相连,当 FTX 下跌时,SOL 从 35 美元跌至 9 美元,人们将它们视为下一个 LUNA。然而,现在我们看到了它的复苏。
Breaking away from a near-death encounter that wiped out all but the most devoted supporters also forms the basis of your most hardcore followers.
LUNA fell, but never came back (but still has “Luna Classic” enthusiasts). FTM also fell, but it lacked a mythical figure who looked more like Andre Cronje (AC) than Michael Kong (CEO of FTM). Fortunately, other chains (unfortunately) have not yet suffered a near-death blow, as many of them are still too new, including the second layer (L2).
Make early believers rich, such as increasing their wealth a hundredfold
Price increases are the best business development strategy, you make people rich and they become your biggest supporters. Bitcoin has seen over 200x growth between 2013 and 2018 for its early adopters, forming its core following.Ethereum, on the other hand, grew about 40-fold between 2020 and 2022, enriching its ICO backers, a diverse group who chose Ethereum over hundreds of other ICO projects.
On the other hand, SOL has increased by about 100 times in the last cycle, but most of it is held by venture capital companies rather than the community, so its grassroots influence is not as good as ETH.Unexpected airdrops like JTO and PYTH enriched the Solana community, where those who staked 1 SOL received $10,000 in JTO. They made the little people who could only afford 1 SOL rich, instead of distributing based on the amount of SOL staked, which favored the rich.Note that most airdrops (or points for that matter) do not enrich the community, only unexpected airdrops do.
During the bear market, L2’s ARB and OP also conducted quite successful airdrops. This is clearly a positive feedback loop, where rising prices attract more enthusiastic supporters and attention, which in turn leads to another rise in prices.
From now on, I will be looking at how TIA used the momentum from the airdrop and the subsequent 10x price action. Early Celestia developers can now receive ~$200k in airdrops. SEI, on the other hand, screwed up their airdrop and lostXiaobai NavigationEarly community members, but now slowly rebuilding it. Aptos and Sui are also venture capital chains, so a great airdrop strategy is needed to win organic community support.
Building religious communities using memes and unique identifiers
You need memes that spread quickly and easily, even with monetary incentives. You need inside jokes so people feel like they belong to an exclusive club. You need people to blindly support a “greater cause” because they feel like they belong.
没有什么比「激光眼」BTC 极客更能说明这一点了(比特币激光眼可以说是比特币社区的文化属性,大力推崇比特币的共识)。对于以太坊,有「.eth」 X 名称(指的是很多推特用户昵称后缀是.eth)。有了 SOL,人们会使用的「◎」或「.sol」——Solana 的玩法,使用的人并不多。但现在 BONK、dogwifhat、Popcat 等引领了 Solana 文化。你还有 0xmert 基本上住在 X 上,嘲笑每个以太坊极客。AVAX 有「」X 名称,而 OP 和 ARB 则使用 和 代替。
Memes must grow naturally from the community, you can't impose memes on the community.You can't justTokenThe community added an "Inu" to the end of the name and considered it a successful project (because Shiba Inu has the suffix Inu, many meme coins also add Inu to the end of their names, thinking they are successful memes). For example, "Solana inu" did not become popular, but $BONK and $WIF did. The Base community performed surprisingly well on $BALD, which was original and a little interesting, but unfortunately ended up being a scam.
You need a charismatic leader with a strong narrative to kickstart the flywheel and lay the foundation for your followers. Then it becomes a positive feedback loop: early community → memes and culture → price increase → more community → more memes → price increase → more community.
The closest thing to a "religious community" I've seen outside of the profession is Berachain. These people just understand crypto humor and community.SEI has done quite well in terms of multiple “Sei” puns, for example, the $SEIYAN community even launched an ecosystem fund. Sui and Aptos are somewhat lacking in this regard, but I believe these will follow as the number increases.
A simple narrative or one-line dialogue as a rallying cry
To spread your religious beliefs, you need a simple sentence to sell it. BTC is "digital gold" and ETH is "the world computer".SOL 是「并行处理」或「ETH 杀手」。最近,出现了一些强有力的说法——Celestia 主导的「模块化区块链」,以及 SEI 和 Monad 的「并行 EVM」。
It’s much easier to tell people you have a “parallel EVM” (still an EVM, but the chain runs faster) than to tell them EIP-4844 will reduce the data cost of Ethereum Rollups by introducing blobs submitted via KZG.
Summarize
The success of blockchain comes down to a strong community. A community of developers, speculators, and users. And the strongest community is religion.
With over 240 L1/L2s and only a handful of original applications, blockchain faces stiff competition for attention. Technology is no longer a differentiator. There’s a reason Blast doesn’t talk much about their tech stack (no one cares) and focuses on their community and yield.
I wrote this post because everyone loves to speculate on L1/L2 because there is a market premium (and it’s also the easiest narrative to understand when “investing in blockchain technology”). But I actually prefer to talk about real-world use cases.
So which L1/L2 will become the largest religions in the next cycle?
The article comes from the Internet:Religion as a framework for blockchain
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