These days, in addition to Grayscale's crazy selling of coins causing the market to plummet and making many respected "stock traders" nervous, the results of Zetachain's airdrop have also left community users feeling disappointed. Yesterday, the cryptocurrency wallet Rabby wallet launched a points system and has already distributed initial points to each EVM address. Upon seeing this news, in addition to lamenting that MetaMask may be "out of luck" if they don't issue coins again, one might also say, "Why is it always points!"

Before the winter that the "Lu Mao Party" found difficult to overcome, now not only are there electronic beggars online "begging for food", but there is also a points system that follows closely. Mass Adoption has not been completed, but the Web2 playbook is becoming more and more similar. Today's Crypto is no longer pure.

搞积分制，Web3 越来越像 Web2 了

Implementing a Points System, Web3 is Becoming More Like Web2

Rabby is not the first wallet to adopt a points-based system. In August 2022, Rainbow Wallet launched Rainbow Boost, a system that marks, scores, and incentivizes on-chain address behavior. The Raindrop rules set are used as points to calculate a user's participation, activity, and contribution in the community. By the end of 2023, Rainbow announced that wallet addresses that have had transaction activity on certain EVM chains can import into Rainbow and receive "retrospective points" rewards, and a leaderboard has also been set up. Although the project team has never said that points are related to airdrops, the "parachute" icon on the wallet interface cannot help but evoke people's imagination.

Before this, the one who specifically talked about points was Blur from the raid on OpenSea. However, in 2023, the most popular one was Friend.Tech, where users buy keys and vote every week, and "accumulate points and exchange airdrops" became the creed of every user. After Friend.Tech's TVL spiraled down, the founder of Blur launched the Layer2 Blast, which followed closely with an early access version, and those invited to join could receive Blast points. Of course, there are also expected airdrops for Blast.

Other than the aforementioned, the Solana ecosystem is also very fond of integrating rewards programs. Jito Labs launched a rewards program in September 2023 and released their token in December of the same year, causing the entire crypto community to FOMO and search for other projects within the Solana ecosystem that offer rewards programs and participate in airdrops.

Previously, these point-based projects required users to interact with the product in order to earn points. However, it is difficult to understand why some projects have introduced sign-in activities to earn points without any interaction or transaction fees. You can simply watch your account balance increase. The only downside is that you have to sign in continuously, otherwise your points will start accumulating from scratch. However, as long as you add the words "potential airdrop", there will be no shortage of people participating.

A calendar for the sign-in and earn points activity launched by a certain project.

Why is it said to be more and more like Web2? In the author's opinion, these point systems are like Meituan's "rice grains" and Ele.me's "foodie beans". I place an order and you give me points, I interact and you give me points. But these "foodie beans" and "rice grains" can also be used to offset part of the meal cost when I place my next order, so the project party can obviously go further, such as using points as gas fees, which makes it even more like Web2.

有形的积分，无形的治理

"Visible integration, intangible governance."

Some voices believe that nowadays, points are like the liquidity mining in the past. When assets are deposited, the things in the account will rise. However, in the past, the balance increased, and now the points increase. Despite the criticism, we still need to face why more and more Web3 projects are starting to launch point systems.

It must be admitted that attention is the scarcest resource, and it is believed that the founders of Web3 projects are also aware of this. If there is no coin issuance plan but still need to win people's hearts, you have to find a way to keep users focused. Points are just a simplified version of the traditional interaction and airdrop method. The project has obtained good data, and users have also increased their expectations for future airdrops due to the increase in points. However, as more and more projects adopt a points system, users' attention on specific projects will definitely be dispersed.

The project team wants traffic, and users want coins. Points are a weak connection point between the two. For example, $DEGEN has achieved a good balance in this regard. It is a meme coin airdropped to the Degen channel community on Farcaster. Users can earn points by posting in the channel, which can be clearly converted into tokens, and the second season airdrop will also be launched.

The reflection behind the points is the governance concept of the project party. Developers want to use this tool to improve user retention and participation. However, it is still a temporary solution and users are attracted by airdrops for the sake of coins. The project party blatantly uses the point system to PUA users, ignoring the elephant in the room.

What users may be averse to now is not an endless points system, but rather the ambiguity and accuracy of the value assigned to points by the project party. Li Jin, a member of Variant Fund, once wrote about how to develop a more complete Web3 points system, which included the point that "maintaining the ambiguity of point value can provide greater flexibility." This approach allows project parties to freely adjust the value of points to manage costs and test incentive measures, while also maintaining user interest.

积分是你看得见的东西，但看不见的是项目方赤裸裸的「算计」。撸毛党继续春耕，不过地主已经换了一片田。

Points are something you can see, but what you can't see is the project party's naked "calculations". The "hair removal party" continues to cultivate, but the landlord has already changed the field.

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