I’ve been engaged on attempting to unravel the issue of on-chain identification/status for near 4 years now (began engaged on it initially in 2021) and one thing I’ve typically come up towards is individuals asking: “do we actually want identification/status?” “what does identification even imply in crypto?” and many others.
Nevertheless because the years have passed by I’ve realised a less complicated and extra approachable option to body the issue is solely round buyer segmentation.
As an example my level and an everlasting fact, I’d prefer to current a narrative of a Chad who time travels, courtesy of ChatGPT:
Chad’s Timeless Rizz: How Buyer Segmentation Has At all times Been the Transfer
Chad wasn’t just a few man—he was that man. Sooner or later, he discovered a magic hourglass that permit him time journey. However each time he landed someplace new, he realized the identical rule utilized: in case you don’t know your viewers, you’re getting cooked.
Historic Hustlers (2000 BCE – Market Mayhem)
Chad spawns right into a dusty bazaar the place everyone seems to be screaming about their “finest offers.” The actual sellers, although? They’re taking part in chess whereas everybody else is taking part in checkers.
The Spartan warriors are shopping for swords, the Egyptian queens are hoarding eyeliner, and the philosophers? They don’t really purchase something, they only stand round debating whether or not worth even exists. Chad doesn’t waste his time pitching to the improper individuals. As an alternative, he units up store promoting premium bronze daggers to the Spartans and gold-trimmed kohl to the queens.
The philosophers attempt to haggle for some scrolls utilizing “theoretical forex.” Chad tells them to get a job.
Industrial Revolution (1900s – One-Dimension-Matches-Mid? No Thanks.
Quick-forward to a smoky manufacturing unit city. Every thing is mass-produced, and Henry Ford is out right here appearing like he simply invented automobiles. “You possibly can have any shade you need, so long as it’s black.”
That works for some time—till GM pulls up and says, “What if… totally different automobiles for various individuals?” Now there’s an inexpensive, sensible one for manufacturing unit staff, a quick one for wealthy playboys, and an enormous cozy one for suburban dads who peaked in highschool.
Chad sees the imaginative and prescient instantly. He launches “Employee Chad’s Powerful Truck” for the manufacturing unit guys and “Sigma Coupe” for the company finance bros. Cash printer goes brrr.
Mad Males Period (Nineteen Sixties – The Authentic Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss Period)
Chad stumbles right into a boardroom the place a bunch of chain-smoking dudes are planning advert campaigns between sips of whiskey. At this level, promoting is now not about what you make—it’s about who you’re making it for.
Dads get truck adverts the place a man wrestles a bear. Housewives get detergent commercials that subtly suggest their husband will depart them if the laundry isn’t contemporary. Children get cereal mascots which are clearly unhinged.
Chad catches on fast. He drops an advert for his new males’s cologne: a man BASE jumps off a cliff, lands in a Ferrari, and instantly will get swarmed by fashions. The cologne smells like fuel station bourbon, nevertheless it sells out in every week.
The Digital Age (2000s–Now – The Algorithm Has Entered the Chat)
Chad wakes as much as a world the place no person is watching TV anymore. As an alternative, the web is watching them. Google and Fb are monitoring clicks, likes, and the way lengthy you stared at that one product at 2 AM. Adverts don’t simply seem—they discover you.
As an alternative of “individuals who like espresso,” manufacturers now go for hyper-specific concentrating on like:
25-year-olds in Brooklyn who drink oat milk and hold looking “the best way to repair my sleep schedule.”
Dudes who simply received dumped and are statistically extra more likely to impulse purchase costly sneakers at 2 AM.
Chad begins dropshipping LED lights that sync to unhappy music solely to teenagers who’ve posted at the least three crying selfies. Enterprise is booming.
The Everlasting Reality
Chad places down the hourglass and sighs. Seems, enterprise has all the time been about figuring out your viewers. Whether or not it’s Spartans in a market, suburban dads within the ‘60s, or TikTok doomscrollers in 2024—in case you perceive the client, you get the bag.
And with that, Chad logs into Shopify to prepare dinner up his subsequent transfer.
As you possibly can perceive from the above, a core precept of enterprise is that figuring out your buyer base. That is the one manner that markets keep aggressive and related to customers.
In crypto we’re at the exact opposite of that. Nobody is aware of something. Is it as a result of everyone seems to be dumb and incompetent? Probably not. The market is determined for one thing like this and has been for years, possibly even a decade.
Should you suppose the present state of crypto analytics is nice then you need to learn my previous articles or pull up a normal crypto analytics chart and inform me the behaviour of the wallets that make up that knowledge. You gained’t have the ability to. It’s all one large mess.
So why has this downside not been solved?
Many have tried to take action. Over the previous few years the variety of web3 knowledge/analytics platform that come and go is astounding. Since 2022 I’ve in all probability tracked all of them myself and so they fail, not as a result of they didn’t need to construct one thing that prospects need, however as a result of they weren’t capable of.
Why is that? As a result of the scale of knowledge and challenges with enabling efficient buyer segmentation in crypto is not like something we’ve seen and requires a really cross disciplinary staff with a long run time horizon and hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in funding to truly construct.
So does that imply it’ll by no means get constructed? After all not. I’ll be sharing extra of what we’ve spent the previous few years constructing to share that pathway. Nevertheless, that is in all probability some of the difficult puzzles to unravel on Earth proper now.
“However who cares in case you clear up crypto buyer segmentation?”
That is what most individuals can not see. Know-how that permits efficient buyer segmentation unlocks outsized worth for society, because it has for the reason that starting of human society. I’d even go as far to argue that with out identification/status/segmentation crypto will keep stagnated within the shitty kind it’s now the place everybody performs round ponzi video games.
Perhaps it is a far fetched thesis…
… however I’m prepared to guess large on it.
