Genesis block: how Onchain was born
It was March 6, 2024, when Onchain officially went live. A group of nine Web3 professionals embarked on a journey to unchain humanity and bring people onchain.
The story, however, started way earlier and it will continue on with you and all those who join the movement.
We were also not alone. After transitioning from the Lisk Foundation into the Onchain Foundation in 2023, three major projects emerged, all with the same goal: to provide what’s necessary for people to come onchain.
- Lisk – providing an infrastructure to build onchain
- Pass App – providing access to the onchain world
- Onchain – providing the reason and inspiration to create onchain solutions
The chain of Web3 insights
The role of Onchain in this triangle was to function as a think tank or research platform and bridge the tremendous gaps that still exist in this field.
- Instead of static research papers, our reports intend to be interactive and accompanied by a gamification system that encouraged systematic learning.
- Instead of a typical monthly/yearly subscription, we decided to offer an NFT membership that gives access to the entire Onchain platform and serves as a value in itself—as a collectible.
- And instead of crypto-oriented publications like Messari’s, or theoretical papers on blockchain use-cases like Web3 think tanks, we go with solution-oriented research reports. These focus on real-world industries that already are or can be improved thanks to blockchain.
So, let’s do a small reality-check and see the results.
The first version of Onchain and what we accomplished
Research substance:
- 8 in-depth research reports on the most influential and real-world oriented niches of Web3. Combined they amount to around 128,000 words. So, it’s fair to say that we’ve basically written 2-3 books on the most valuable use cases of blockchain.
- Nearly 90 Onchain Magazine articles covering AI, DePIN, DeSci, RWAs, and many more categories.
- Over 30 sent newsletters that break down both the reports and industry trends.
Products:
- The beta version of the Web3 Insights Marketplace, where the aforementioned research can be conducted in a decentralized way. Everyone can contribute to the platform and will soon be able to request specific types of research.
- The launch of .ONCHAIN Domains, with nearly 4,500 TLDs sold in the first month.
- The Onchain gamification, where users can collect the aforementioned content pieces and score onchain points.
- The Onchain NFT Founding Membership will give all early members lifetime access to the platform including all features, benefits, and perks that will be added in the future. The mint is coming soon!
- The Onchain Store and Onchain Print Magazine where the onchain world meets offchain people.
Community:
- Building a beautiful movement of people aligned with the Onchain’s mission.
- Growing our social presence (organically!) to 6,000 on X and 2,500 followers on LinkedIn.
- Achieving an average of over 10,000 monthly users at Onchain.org.
- Creating a mission-driven internal culture – what is confirmed by an absolutely astonishing employee Net Promoter Score of 94/100.
This might be a long recap already, but hey, milestones like these don’t come often. So, before we dive into the future, let’s take a moment to express well-earned gratitude to the people who made it possible. As you can see, our team has doubled over the year.
- Adewale – for relentless effort in addressing our most quirky design requests.
- Ambreen – for all the business-driven contributions to the reports.
- Ananya – for the technical blockchain expertise and all the happy hours sessions.
- Angela – for going way beyond the “Growth Intern” role.
- Arin – for being Arin and making the most out of it.
- Ashton – for endless contributions and the willingness to do even more.
- Boris – for combining boring data with being the most entertaining human around.
- Chris – for the exceptional growth over the last year.
- Jean – for making Onchain onchain.
- Kade – for proactivity, broad horizons, and always being ready to support content-wise.
- Leon – for taking our research to yet another level.
- Lucas – for being the UX, design, and branding master.
- Mariia – for never-ending social media content ideas and contributions.
- Nitzan – for transforming every script or crappy footage into beautiful videos.
- Olivia – for immediate research contributions.
- Ruth – for making us proud of every content piece we produce.
- Tim – for pushing us toward cloning humans.
- Veronica – for providing our content with a very human touch.
Now, let’s talk about what’s next because the future of bringing people onchain is way bigger.
Onchain 2.0: From research platform to a Web3 intelligence hub
One year has passed, but our vision remains unchanged: we want to see a world where humanity benefits from the onchain solutions. Our logic on how to achieve it is still valid:
- (vision) To see the world in which humanity is onchain…
- (mission) … we need founders and entrepreneurs to build onchain solutions…
- (solution) … that’s why we’d like to provide them with handpicked real-world Web3 insights to make better decisions faster…
- (our approach & USP) … by enabling and facilitating decentralized research aimed at their needs.
However, one thing became clear over the past year: data alone, even if beautifully provided, isn’t enough. Web3 founders don’t just need reports; they need tailored insights that drive real decisions faster and with more confidence. Moreover, the Web3 Insights Marketplace, where you will be able to place specific requests for chosen creators, might be only one of the ways of accessing tailored Web3 research.
That’s why Onchain is evolving and will expand massively in the coming months. The research platform and the decentralized marketplace for Web3 insights are just two steps in our journey. Now, it’s time to transform Onchain into a proper research ecosystem and the real decision intelligence hub for Web3 founders.
The road to a smarter, more decentralized future
Moving forward, we’re attempting to build the ultimate Web3 decision intelligence hub on three different levels:
Level 1: A new generation of decision-helping solutions
Onchain will create a set of tailored products focused on answering three critical questions for founders and entrepreneurs:
- Why build an Onchain business?
- What Onchain business to build?
- How to build an Onchain business?
To achieve this, we’ll expand the current set of tools and transition from static & centralized solutions into AI-automated and decentralized products by:
- Accompanying reports with personalized insights coming from the Onchain Intelligence Dashboard.
- Developing a more interactive, request-driven marketplace for research, where projects can seek tailored insights while contributors monetize their knowledge.
- Moving toward integrating AI-powered knowledge and research agents working on behalf of insights-hungry founders.
Level 2: Building an ecosystem of research tools
The aforementioned products will serve as the foundation for a decentralized, community-driven platform where contributors and founders interact.
To facilitate this, Onchain will introduce token incentives for research requests and contributions while inviting researchers, creators, and founders to co-create the space. It’ll glue all the products together and constitute a coherent and meaningful decision intelligence hub.
Moreover, as the platform will be open and dynamic (as a proper ecosystem should be), the current offering will likely evolve further. Therefore we will introduce an additional, third level.
Level 3: The onchain movement
We want to go way beyond offering products. If all works as planned in Level 1 & 2, Onchain will become a movement. We strive to create a community of humans who see something other than an investment opportunity in Web3.
There will be many opportunities to contribute. Starting from “spreading the word” on X, or addressing requests and earning in the Web3 Insights Marketplace, and ending with building your own Onchain reputation or co-creating the research tools.
It all is and will be placed under one mission: empowering Web3 founders and helping them make better decisions. So that their (your) solutions can indeed help bring humanity onchain.
Smarter insights, better decisions – shape the Onchain future
I hope that this anniversary article showed you that Onchain is not only about the “Onchain AG”, the formal entity behind all the things we do. It’s also about you.
It’s about your commitment to the onchain world, the vision you share with us (hopefully?!), and the growing group of enthusiasts and founders.
As the leader of the project, I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved over the past 12 months. But there’s a reason I devoted more space to the “vision” part than the “recap” section of the article.
At Onchain, we’re extremely excited about what’s to come. We see a great opportunity to make people’s lives better thanks to decentralization, enhanced security, radical ownership, and all the primitives that Web3 stands for. And we believe that hand-picked, tailored, and curated research is the right way to help build the solutions that will make this vision a reality.
We’re not here to simply watch Web3 unfold – we’re here to build it. If you’re a founder, a researcher, or someone who just gets it, now’s the time to dive in. The mint is coming. The movement is growing. The research alpha is real. The question is: are you in?