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Rachel Wolfson
Reporter
Rachel Wolfson
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The blockchain sector is constantly evolving, and new networks have begun to emerge regularly. To put this into perspective, Coinranking shows there are currently 171 Layer-1 (L1) coins.
Even so, L1 and Layer-2 (L2) networks often struggle with on-chain user engagement. Although Ethereum is known for driving a large majority of users, newer networks, particularly, find it challenging to maintain growth and continual adoption.
Gamification Drives Engagement
A number of blockchain networks are therefore turning to gamification to stand out in a sea of ever-evolving chains. Gamification leverages task-based challenges, point systems, and rewards to activate and grow online communities.
A Coinbase spokesperson told Cryptonews that gamification can indeed help drive on-chain engagement. He explained that this was proven last year when Coinbase hosted its annual event, “Onchain Summer.”
“Our team built a ‘Summer Pass’ game experience that allowed users to earn points as they participated and transacted on-chain. As users earned points, they were able to unlock different levels, while receiving various non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and prizes. Users could then share their summer pass progress on social networks with a personal referral link to earn extra points,” the spokesperson explained.
In addition, Coinbase users who participated in Onchain Summer could spin a wheel daily to earn extra points, which further drove engagement and retention.
“We saw that 83% of people who spun the wheel once returned to spin again,” the spokesperson added.
Crypto Tipping Platform on X Drives Engagement
Alan Orwick, CEO of L1 Quai Network, told Cryptonews that he further believes gamification is key for ensuring the growth of a blockchain network.
Orwick recently helped Quai Network launch a crypto tipping platform that can be used on the social media network X. Known as “Kipper,” Orwick shared that its goal is to empower creators and fans with peer-to-peer transfers, allowing monetization across social platforms.
While some content creators and influencers can monetize using traditional fiat methods on X, Kipper allows users to send anyone tips in $QUAI.
“Kipper drives on-chain engagement by using Quai’s native token—$QUAI—for tips,” Orwick said. “This gives users financial sovereignty and access across Web2 social networks.”
Although Kipper was launched on April 28, Orwick pointed out that desired results are already being achieved.
These results are encouraging, as Orwick stated that it has been challenging to demonstrate the benefits associated with Quai Network since the launch of its mainnet in February this year. The L1 blockchain utilizes a decentralized energy dollar, or stablecoin, called $Q1.
This is designed to provide predictable value tied directly to energy while allowing transactions across a Proof-of-Work blockchain. Although the use case is interesting, some users remain unaware of the network’s utility.
“Private $Q1 tips are tied to energy, yet this needs clearer education. I’m hoping that Kipper will help drive engagement, while letting users understand the benefits behind Quai Network,” Orwick said.
Gamified Quests For DePIN Adoption
L1 peaq also uses gamification to drive adoption, but for decentralized physical infrastructure networks, or DePINs.
According to Coingecko, the DePIN market cap is worth around $18.9 billion. Several blockchain networks are competing to drive market share in the DePIN sector, which is why on-chain engagement is essential.
Max Thake, co-founder of peaq, told Cryptonews that he believes gamification is massively important when it comes to an L1 network that was built for a specific use case.
“Peaq’s mission is to power the machine economy, and DePINs are a huge part of this,” Thake said. “But the DePIN space is still quite new, and remains an unknown for Web2 folks and somewhat obscure even for a Web3 audience.”
Thake therefore believes that gamification is necessary. He shared that peaq recently launched its gamified “Get Real” campaign to spark DePIN engagement.
“When joining the Get Real campaign, users can mint customizable NFTs and complete quests,” Thake said. “Points are then earned, which count toward end-of-season rewards.”
Thake elaborated that user quests involve activities such as measuring sound pollution with a smartphone or driving with a Web3 navigator to collect data.
The Get Real campaign underwent its beta season in February this year, but Thake shared that the campaign is slated for a full launch this quarter due to impressive results.
“We were battle-testing the core mechanics behind the campaign, but we still saw an uptick in new devices being onboarded, and the participating DePINs told us they had more people joining in,” he said. “That was exactly our goal—we weren’t aiming to create meaningless activity, but rather to introduce more people to DePINs to accelerate adoption.”
Gamification To Solve The L2 Discoverability Challenge
While gamification is proving to drive on-chain engagement for L1s, this model can also help L2s get discovered.
For example, Ren Yu Kong, ecosystem lead at Eclipse—a Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) built on Ethereum that launched in March 2024—told Cryptonews that L2 networks have historically had a discovery problem, often relying on a limited social layer for app discovery.
He added that the experience of interacting with the chain itself and trying new apps hasn’t always been engaging for users.
“If you look at the general trend of consumer apps, gamification is increasingly becoming essential to drive retention and user behavior,” Yu Kong said. “We further believe that gamification should first and foremost come at a chain level to help applications get distribution and net new users.”
To ensure this, Yu Kong explained that Eclipse launched “Turbo Tap,” which is a gamified experience meant to drive engagement on Eclipse. Users can earn points by accumulating “grass” through interactive games.
“At its core, Turbo Tap allows users to interact with Turbo, which is a highland cow. The goal for users is to accumulate as much grass as possible by tapping the cow, bridging over assets, using various applications, and collecting in-game power-ups such as Milk,” Yu Kong said.
Turbo Tap launched in February this year and has already driven over 230,000 new users to the Eclipse network. Yu Kong added that over 15 billion interactions with the chain have since been documented.
Challenges To Consider
Although gamification can help drive on-chain engagement, a number of challenges remain. For instance, Yu Kong mentioned that the biggest challenge associated with launching an experience like Turbo Tap is maintaining a high bar for the user experience.
“Building a gamified experience often involves many moving parts, including off-chain components, on-chain contracts, indexing data, connecting socials, various infrastructure needs, and more,” he said.
According to Yu Kong, ensuring that all of these elements work in unison without bugs is a non-trivial effort for any engineering team.
“This is especially true if many users start interacting. The simplest way to combat this is to do extensive internal testing while developing the product,” he added.
Orwick also commented that while launching Kipper wasn’t challenging, building the right chain architecture for it was time-consuming.
“Kipper will need continued focus on user feedback and experience to get the loop right,” Orwick noted.
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