Harry, please tell us what inspired you to enter the world of crypto and blockchain, and what led you to co-found Galxe.
I’ve always been interested in the concept of decentralization. While everyone usually focuses on decentralization on the user side, I’m more passionate about decentralization on the supply side. Platforms like Github and Wikipedia encourage the latter– how we can innovate together as a society and benefit by adding value to the system. That’s what inspired me to co-found Galxe. At the beginning, we recognized that the market was in need of a tool for web3 community builders and marketers to leverage blockchain technology to grow and engage with their communities, so we pioneered a way to leverage NFTs, users’ on and off-chain activities to propel community growth.
Could you provide a brief explanation of Galxe and the types of users that utilize the platform?
Galxe is the leading platform for building web3 communities. Our platform provides projects with a suite of on and off chain tools (which are verifiable Credentials) to capture their target audiences and grow their communities exponentially. With over 11 million users, Galxe has propelled the growth of Optimism, Polygon, Arbitrum, and more than 2900 partners with our reward-based loyalty programs.
Our user base consists of web3 projects who seek to grow and engage with their communities, as well as end-users who utilize Galxe to explore, interact with, and contribute to new communities that align with their personal preferences.
What makes Galxe’s web3-native platform relevant to mainstream marketers, and how can it benefit their marketing efforts?
Web3 marketing aims to shift away from the traditional web2 marketing and focuses on incentivizing user loyalty, challenging and disrupting the web2 way of thinking which implies that VIP treatment is directly correlated to spending. Web3 projects that work with Galxe leverage our unique reward systems and ‘plug-and-play’ growth solutions to reward their communities’ loyalty instead of how much money they are able to splurge.
An innovative feature that Galxe offers is our different types of Reward and Campaign. These quest-based Campaigns allow project’s to tailor the rewards and activities however they desire. For example, if a partner wants to select ten users through a raffle and reward them with an NFT whitelist, or if a partner wants to reward ten of their most loyal Twitter users by sending them t-shirts, they can easily do so by leveraging Galxe’s Custom Reward Campaign.
What we provide is a platform of tools and solutions, which our partners can leverage and play around to innovate, when it comes to rewarding and engaging with their communities!
For marketers looking to gain a better understanding of web3 marketing, how can Galxe help them get started?
Galxe helps marketers in a myriad of ways. They can leverage Galxe to identify their target audience and market directly to them, to choose the community members’ activities they want to encourage, and to distribute the type of rewards they want to incentivize with.
Our platform is plug and play. This means that anyone, web3 savvy or not, is able to navigate, participate in, and design Campaigns. We aim to make the content on our platform as user-friendly as possible and we encourage everyone, especially those unfamiliar with web3, to get started by participating in a campaign on Galxe. Getting involved is truly easier than it sounds!
The Optimism Quest, for instance, a learn-to-earn Campaign launched by our partner Optimism, attracted a huge crowd of web3 enthusiasts to explore the Optimism ecosystem and resulted in over 3 million NFT rewards being minted. Not only did this Campaign boost Optimism usage by 50%, but also provide a unique opportunity for users to experience the Layer 2 blockchain and the dApps built on it.
Can you tell us more about how Galxe’s reward-based loyalty programs work, and how they help activate communities for blockchain and Web3 projects?
On March 23rd, we launched a new loyalty points system for our users. This system allows Web3 projects to build their own on-chain loyalty program on Galxe, where users can earn loyalty points by completing on and off chain tasks and referring friends.
The new loyalty points system is designed to incentivize and reward users for their engagement with the Galxe platform, as well as encourage new users to join the community. It reflects Galxe’s commitment to providing innovative and user-friendly Web3 services that enhance the user experience and promote community engagement.
How does Galxe’s credential data network work, and how do you ensure the security and privacy of user data?
Privacy and security is of the utmost importance at Galxe. The Galxe Passport was created to be a secure, private way for users to store data. Users’ private information is encrypted with their password, thus, only accessible to the user, while all others (including Galxe) can only access the data after receiving the user’s consent. Users who want to obtain a Soulbound Token can do so by going through the verification process on Galxe which will then allow them to mint and claim the Galxe Passport Token.
Galxe Passport is revolutionary not only for Galxe but for the Web3 space as a whole. This feature tests the boundaries of decentralization in the space, enabling a convenient, safe, and anonymous experience for all. We pride ourselves on being innovators at Galxe and plan to continue developing tools that ensure a secure Web3 experience.
Can you talk about a particularly successful campaign or collaboration that Galxe has undertaken, and what made it so effective?
We recently partnered with Optimism, a fast, stable, and scalable L2 blockchain built by Ethereum developers, for a 4 month campaign called “Optimism Quests”. The retention rate achieved post-campaign was impressive and definitely something to note. Comparing the 30-day pre-quest and post-quest data, Dune reported that “Optimism Quests” brought almost a 50% increase in all Optimism usage and the number of unique wallet addresses making transactions per day doubled from 11.65k to 25.13k.
In the case of individual dApps, the highest percentage of increase in user acquisition was an incredible 276.9% for Granary, a decentralized, user-driven borrowing and lending liquidity market. Perpetual Protocol, an on-chain perpetual futures DEX, achieved an incredible increase of 7k Daily Active Users from 15k to 22k – this data was recorded a month after the 4-month campaign ended. Overall, participating projects achieved an average growth of 23%.
How do you ensure that Galxe’s campaigns and loyalty programs are accessible to a wide range of users, including those who may not be familiar with blockchain technology?
We run a plethora of different campaigns on Galxe. These range from social campaigns which take place on Twitter to bridging tokens across multiple blockchains. We truly have a campaign for everyone regardless of their web3 expertise. Not only that, but we are the premier learn-to-earn platform and we are constantly supporting campaigns that teach our users about web3, crypto, and blockchain technologies.
How do you approach building trust and credibility with blockchain projects and their communities, particularly in a rapidly evolving and often volatile industry?
We have proven time and again that projects who utilize our dashboard gain and obtain the growth they are looking for. This is why projects continue to come back. To date, we have 2,400 partners and 10 million participants – the numbers really speak for themselves. Not only that, but all of our smart contracts are open source, which means that the code is publicly available and transparent for anyone to review and audit.
In addition, we protect our current users by filtering the projects that have access to them and ensuring that no ill-intentioned parties utilize our platform.
Can you share any exciting new partnerships or collaborations that Galxe has in the works, and what impact do you hope they will have on the blockchain and Web3 communities?
Galxe’s recent collaboration with Linea, the zkEVM layer developed by ConsenSys, proved to be an immense success. The campaign achieved a remarkable participation milestone, with more than 5.2 million unique participants and 30mm in transaction volume. Over 800K of all participants successfully claimed the Sybil prevention quest, blocking malicious bots and validating user authenticity. The staggering engagement of millions of individuals signifies a momentous achievement for both Linea and web3 builders, providing an exciting opportunity to thoroughly test the platform’s features in preparation for its mainnet launch.
How do you manage stress and maintain a work-life balance as a co-founder of a fast-growing startup?
Personally, working out and making sure I take care of my health first allows me to be a better leader and innovator at Galxe. This is my second time building and growing a company with my Co-Founder from the ground up, and while it’s no easy fit, the second-time around is definitely a lot smoother because I can build upon the learnings acquired when building my first company.
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Harry Zhang, Co-founder of Galxe
Harry Zhang is the Co Founder and Project Lead of Galxe. Prior to founding Galxe, Harry was the Co-Founder and COO of Lino Network and DLive.tv. Harry holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Statistics from UC Berkeley and served as President of the China Entrepreneurs Association (ACE) at Berkeley from 2016 to 2017. LinkedIn.