Stack ‘points chain’ layer-3 aims to bring loyalty points to Base
Stack went to mainnet Monday as a so-called factors chain, constructed as a layer-3 on prime of Base.
DeFi tasks have these days been incentivizing utilization on their platforms by means of “factors,” or participation tallies that decide allocation in a future token airdrop.
Crypto is adjusting to factors mania. Customers are gaining leveraged publicity to factors on Pendle and buying and selling factors on Whales Market. DeFi-focused hedge funds are accumulating currently-valueless factors on behalf of liquidity suppliers.
Learn extra: DeFi ‘factors’ farming has reshaped the crypto funding panorama
However these factors are inclined to reside off-chain. Backed by recent funding from buyers together with Archetype Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan and Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero, Stack hopes to show factors programs into an on-chain primitive. The venture was based by Graeme Boy, who beforehand co-founded the decentralized publishing platform Mirror.
Stack is deliberately restricted in scope. In a Telegram message, Boy stated factors can’t be natively traded on Stack. In Boy’s view, this holds with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s imaginative and prescient for soulbound tokens — basically non-transferable NFTs.
Stack is constructed as a layer-3 blockchain, which means its factors attestation information rolls as much as Base’s layer-2 blockchain, which in flip rolls as much as Ethereum. Layer-3s “could not essentially present a safe answer” for DeFi, Stack stated in a weblog submit, however they inexpensively reap the advantages of blockchain transparency. Fuel charges are low on layer-3s, since information is doubly compressed earlier than being despatched to Ethereum.
As token airdrops change into an more and more common technique of bootstrapping tasks, Stack’s boosters hope on-chain factors attestations will change into desk stakes in crypto.
Learn extra: ‘Blast radius’ of recent customers becoming a member of Solana DeFi for the factors, liquidity is ‘snowballing’
“Orchestrating airdrops traditionally is extraordinarily labor and cost-intensive, [but] by shifting the main target to factors and placing them on a [layer-3], you drastically cut back the overhead in each circumstances whereas sustaining blockchain auditability,” Katie Chiou, principal at Stack investor Archetype Ventures, advised Blockworks.
Factors managed on Stack will not be meant to be traded on open markets. Nonetheless, factors program managers may determine to make the factors exchangeable, in line with Stack’s product advertising and marketing supervisor Bradley Freeman. He stated this might look much like American Categorical’ program, the place factors could be transformed into Delta Skymiles.
Blockchain’s usefulness for buyer rewards packages isn’t a brand new thought. Singapore Airways started utilizing a personal blockchain for frequent flier miles in 2018. Starbucks continues to be beta testing its NFT rewards program.
Learn extra: Lufthansa to supply NFT rewards program
To this point, blockchain factors packages have largely remained fringe initiatives. Not everyone seems to be satisfied of the necessity for a factors chain.
“I can’t fathom a cause why that is essential. Factors are [ERC-20] tokens with no switch choice,” an X consumer wrote.
Stack pitched its factors chain thought to buyers on the Coinbase Ventures Summit in Malibu in October 2023, the venture stated. Final week, it introduced a $3 million seed spherical. The venture additionally drew plaudits from Jesse Pollak, the founding father of Base.
“All the pieces goes to maneuver [on-chain] — factors included. It’s because [on-chain], [developers] can construct sooner, attain extra customers and embody the open, clear values of the [on-chain] financial system,” Pollak stated in a textual content.
