If you're a creator, this one's definitely for you. Even if you're not, keep reading because you might want to switch careers by the end of this article! Now that we have your attention, here starts our attempt to live up to your expectations. As you can tell from the title, our focus is going to be on Taki, a Web3 social network. Taki solves a very pertinent problem of today's creator economy : Revenue. Or, as Superteam would've put it, Taki aims to turn creators into creatooors. Leveraging the arsenal of User Coin and $TAKI Token, it creates an ecosystem that adds value for the users as opposed to extracting it.
Don't leave if this sounds like something straight out of a ‘Estimation and Inference in Econometrics’ book by Russell Davidson and James G. MacKinnon. As we build up from the first principles, we'll structure this into the following sections:
Why do Web2 social platforms lack?
How does Taki change this?
How to use Taki?
Bull Case on Taki
Bear Case on Taki
With that out of the way, let's dive right in.
Why do Web2 social platforms lack?
1. Poor Business Models : You see, the current creator economy is built around attention. What this basically means is that the predominant way for users to monetize their content is by placing ads or doing brand collaborations. On the face of it, this model might seem harmless. But when you dig deeper, it reveals two serious issues :
Commoditization of Content : In the eyes of platforms, your content is just a commodity that enables them to grab user attention. Every year tonnes of content gets uploaded on social media platforms to do the same. However, attention is a scarce resource. So your content loses its non-fungibility (read: unique value) when it competes for attention against other pieces of content, making the ecosystem a land of zero-sum games.
Vast Income Inequality : Sure, it's true that anything associated with money naturally follows the power law distribution, and rightfully so. But, Web2 social platforms have taken it way too far. According to a study conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub, 95% of the revenue goes to 5% of the creators. If the Web2 creator economy were a country, it'd be way up there in terms of Gini coefficient. This phenomenon can be attributed to the recommendation algorithms put in place by social platforms. They overwhelmingly drive traffic towards content which is more likely to grab attention, leaving out a whole long tail of content which adds just as much value but is not advertiser-friendly.
2. No Way For Users To Share In Creator Upside : The early audience of any successful creator are instrumental for their success. Despite this, traditional social media platforms do not provide any means for users to participate in their favourite creator’s success. As for creators, they fail to access the capital needed for upping their game directly from their audience. Indeed, users can support creators through platforms like Patreon, such transactions are altruistic in nature. They fail to deliver any financial value for the users themselves.
3. No Say In Platform Governance : Web2 social platforms follow a shareholder ownership structure where only the shareholders can vote on platform governance. However, this structure fails to appreciate the importance of the very users that make these platforms valuable. And to make matters worse, shareholder interests often clash with user interests. Let me show how: According to Gari whitepaper, 55.4 million creators from India alone lost $635 million in potential revenue over the last year. This was because of the cuts taken by the platforms to maximize profits for shareholders.
Introducing Taki
Taki is a decentralized social network that allows users to get monetarily compensated for the value that they add to the platform. These rewards come directly from the users, and not the marketing budgets of businesses. Here's a product teardown of Taki:
1. User Coins
You could think of User Coins as the shares of a creator. Suppose you're a small-time lifestyle influencer and wanted some money to fund a trip to Barbados to make some content. You can't go up to a bank manager and ask for a business loan. Nor can you possibly go to a VC firm or an angel investor as you wouldn't fit their requirements.
And that's where User Coins come in.
At one end, you can sell your User Coin to get access to the capital needed. At the other end, users who bought your User Coins can get a stake in your future cash flows.
2. Gold Taki
On Taki, Gold Taki is the way of showing appreciation for content. In other words, it is essentially the Taki equivalent of ‘likes'. Each Gold Taki is worth 2 $TAKI (more on this in the next section). When a creator receives a Gold Taki on their post, 1 $TAKI is retained by the creator and the other 1 $TAKI goes to the backers (User Coin holders) in accordance to their share.
3. $TAKI Token
This is native token of the Taki ecosystem. All the rewards are denominated in $TAKI. As mentioned earlier, $TAKI token is used to buy User Coins and Gold Taki. In the future, Taki plans to base its governance upon $TAKI token.
Overview of $TAKI Tokenomics
4. Taki Wallet
Taki also comes with a native in-app crypto wallet. This wallet is to be used for storing User Coins and $TAKI, and making all kinds of in-app transactions. It also comes with a functionality that allows users to withdraw to their exchange or Phantom wallet.
Taki Wallet
5. Rewards
Rewards can vary according to the contribution level of the user. In Taki, rewards can fall into three broad categories:
Engagement : Users can complete daily tasks which include posting, commenting, giving Gold Taki, etc.
User Growth : Users can also earn rewards for bringing more users to the app through invites.
User Coin Rewards : As mentioned previously, users can also earn rewards from the User Coins they bought.
RLY Network Rewards : Users can also earn TLY tokens.
Onboarding Guide
After listening to all the cool things that Taki does, we know you can't wait to get started. So here's a guide for precisely that.
Prerequisites: None
Step 1 : Go to Taki's website and fill in your details to join the waitlist.
Step 2 : Once your access is approved, you can create a username.
Step 3 : Verify your account to gain access to your Taki wallet.
There you go! You can now start your content journey on Taki.
Community And Backers
Taki has a very strong community with almost 10k members on Discord and 63k followers on Twitter at the time of writing.
Taki Growth Analytics (Source : Taki Statistics)
The total number of users on the Taki app stands at 126k and has been growing steadily. More than 650k people are on the waitlist. Recently, Taki has also successfully crossed the 2.5 million mark in terms of the number of Gold Taki given out.
Taki is co-founded by the duo of Kevin Chou and Sakina Arsiwala. Its key partners include SuperLayer and RLY Network Association. They have raised capital to the tune of $3.5 million from Kraken Ventures, Huboi Capital, FTX Ventures, SuperLayer, Coinbase Ventures, Roxa Works, OX Blockdream Ventures, Formless Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund, Luni Expeditions and Solana Ventures.
Really appreciate you sticking around to the finish and hope you enjoyed the deep dive
