The new frontier in digital engagement. A public ledger invites a collective exploration of target audiences.

Lately, I've immersed myself in the intricacies of onchain distribution, a concept brimming with potential to reshape how we identify and reward quality wallets based on their onchain interactions. This approach isn't just theoretical; it's already being explored by pioneering companies like Layer3 and Boost. The next step in the process relates to identifying target audiences that could bootstrap your user acquisition strategy and building a community.

The Promise

Imagine a digital ecosystem where rewards, tokens, or content are distributed not through traditional networks but by analyzing onchain behaviors for creating a target audience. This method can surpass the effectiveness of even the largest web2 networks under the right conditions and with a diverse array of assets onchain. The inherent flexibility and alignment with user incentive make this approach particularly compelling.

At the core of this revolution are EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) wallets, which play a pivotal role in onchain distribution. A wallet address ensures that users can interact seamlessly with various decentralized applications (dApps) across the Ethereum ecosystem. The interoperability provided by Ethereum and its Layer 2 solutions enhances this process.

EVM wallets facilitate the collection and analysis of onchain behaviors across a spectrum of chains, making it easier to identify genuine users and their interactions. This level of authenticity is crucial for effective targeting, as it ensures that rewards, tokens, and content are distributed to users who are genuinely engaged and interested.

Layer 2 solutions further bolster this system by offering scalability and reduced transaction costs. This means more onchain activity so that a larger number of interactions can be recorded and analyzed without the prohibitive fees associated with the main Ethereum network.

Enhancing Authenticity with ENS and Farcaster

Building on the foundation of EVM wallets and Layer 2 interoperability, attaching your wallet address to an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and a Farcaster account can significantly increase the authenticity and verifiability of a that wallet address.

ENS: Digital Identity

ENS provides a human-readable name for your wallet address, making it easier for others to interact with you in the digital space. This simplifies transactions and interactions, reducing the risk of errors associated with long, complex wallet addresses. More importantly, an ENS name serves as a digital identity, linking your wallet to a recognizable and verifiable entity. This layer of authenticity is crucial in establishing trust and credibility within the onchain ecosystem.

Farcaster: Social Relevance and Reach

Farcaster, on the other hand, adds a social dimension to your digital identity. By associating your wallet with a Farcaster account, you can leverage social signals to enhance your onchain presence. Farcaster usernames provide context about the user behind the wallet, including their social reach, relevance, and interests. For example, interests can be derived from what channels a wallet engages with the most on Farcaster. This integration creates a richer, more complete profile that can be used to target interactions and rewards more effectively.

Amplifying Targeting Accuracy

The combination of ENS and Farcaster can amplify the targeting accuracy of onchain distribution. ENS ensures that interactions are with verified and credible entities, while Farcaster provides insight into the social influence and relevance of those entities. This dual-layered approach not only improves the precision of reward distribution but also fosters a more trustworthy and engaging onchain environment.

By integrating ENS and Farcaster into the onchain distribution model, we can create a robust framework for identifying and rewarding high-quality users. This not only enhances the overall user experience but also drives more meaningful and authentic interactions.

Addressing Challenges: Anti-Sybil Requirements

To harness the full power of onchain distribution, robust anti-sybil measures are essential. By implementing stricter anti-sybil protocols, we can filter out bots and low-quality interactions, ensuring that rewards are directed towards genuinely valuable users. This might initially lower metrics for protocols or apps, but the long-term benefits of engaging higher-quality users far outweigh the drawbacks.

Utilizing Scoring Apps for Enhanced Security

To bolster these anti-sybil efforts, tools like Gitcoin Passport and Talent Protocol play a crucial role. These scoring applications evaluate wallets based on predefined account connections, offering a more sophisticated means of verifying user authenticity. Gitcoin Passport, for example, scores wallets by analyzing various identity verifications and activity metrics, creating a trust score that can be used to determine eligibility for rewards. Talent Protocol, on the other hand, focuses on professional credentials and achievements, linking wallet addresses to verified skills and work history. This adds another layer of credibility, ensuring that the wallets engaging with the ecosystem are backed by real, verifiable individuals with established reputations.

The Path Forward

While ENS and Farcaster provide significant value in terms of identity and social relevance, relying solely on these services can be insufficient. Both ENS names and Farcaster accounts can be botted and gamed, undermining their effectiveness in preventing sybil attacks. Combining these various tools and protocols, we can develop a comprehensive anti-sybil framework that significantly enhances the quality of target audiences within the onchain ecosystem. By filtering out bots and low-quality engagements, and focusing on verified, high-quality users, we create a more robust, trustworthy, and engaging environment. This, in turn, amplifies the effectiveness of onchain distribution, ensuring that rewards, tokens, and content reach the most deserving participants, fostering a healthier and more dynamic digital community.

Curating Audiences Based on Onchain Interactions

Curating target audiences based on onchain interactions opens up a wealth of opportunities for precise and meaningful engagement. Identifying interesting wallets involves analyzing specific behaviors and patterns. This is not limited to X minted Y, but can be expanded to interactions on fully onchain games, voting in DAOs, creating parties, making a bet on ploymarket, using $fly at a restaurant, or interacting on DeFi protocols. The more things come onchain, the larger the dataset we are exploring.

For instance, you could start by finding wallets that minted high-profile NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). By filtering these wallets to see if their most recent onchain transaction was within the last seven days, you ensure they are still active and engaged in the ecosystem.

Another example, you can look for wallets that have minted Loot and recently participated in events like Base's Onchain Summer. This dual criterion helps identify users who are not only early adopters but also continuously active in the latest trends.

Tools like Nansen and Dune Analytics can assist in these tasks by providing comprehensive data analytics and querying capabilities. These platforms enable you to create detailed profiles and segments of users based on their onchain activity, ensuring that your curated target audiences are both relevant and highly engaged.

Some sample curated wallet groups I created on Once Upon:

Wallets that minted both Terraforms and Opepen:

Wallets that are top Basepaint art contributors:

Reaching Target Audiences

Reaching these curated wallets requires a collective effort between innovative protocols and self-custodial wallets. Protocols like Daylight play a critical role in this process. Daylight, for instance, facilitates the interaction between wallet addresses and the broader blockchain ecosystem by notifying users when their wallets are targeted for specific interactions or rewards. This ensures that users are aware of opportunities and can engage accordingly.

Self-custodial wallets, on their part, need to integrate with protocols like Daylight to provide timely notifications to users. When a wallet is targeted for an interaction, the user should receive a ping, ensuring they don't miss out on potential rewards or important updates. This integrated approach ensures that reaching target audiences is efficient and effective, maximizing engagement and participation.

A Personal Experiment: Rewarding Engagement

I earned 12,000 $moxie (~ 100$) by baiting Dan Romero to reply to one of my casts (will not go into how moxie works, but it is a protocol that rewards farcaster users for getting good engagement on their casts).

To share this success, I created a boost that distributes part of the $moxie to followers of my farcaster channel( /the-glyph) encouraging them to mint a commemorative NFT and claim their $moxie rewards. While this exercise might seem straightforward, it highlights the potential of onchain data to create diverse and rewarding engagement clusters. I created the target audience by curating all the wallet addresses of the farcaster users that follow my channel.

The Future of Onchain Distribution and Audiences

The implications of onchain distribution are profound. By leveraging interoperable onchain data, we can create intricate networks of reward distribution that are not only more efficient but also more aligned with user interests. This could pave the way for a new era of digital engagement, where interactions are not just tracked but meaningfully rewarded.