Mask Network Third Round Grant Recipients: Social Ecosystem Projects Overview
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Mask Network Third Round Grant Recipients: Social Ecosystem Projects Overview
Both OpenBuild and Glacier Network are empowering developers and strengthening the infrastructure of decentralized applications.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Mask Network
Translation: TechFlow
The Mask Network Web3 social ecosystem grants have entered their third round. In this round, we selected 33 grant recipients from numerous applications. These projects are divided into three categories: Web3 Social, Autonomous Worlds, and Public Goods. Among them, 10 projects were selected for the Web3 Social category, 12 for the Autonomous Worlds category, and 10 for the Public Goods category.
These projects come from multiple countries including China, the United States, Germany, Scotland, Spain, Poland, Australia, Russia, India, and Singapore.
As we can see, autonomous worlds are thriving, with 10 fully on-chain gaming projects emerging, many of which are built on Starknet. Additionally, two projects focus on building communities and content creation specifically for fully on-chain games.
As Mask Network continues to build its Web3 social ecosystem, we observe a wide variety of Web3 social projects emerging in this round. Projects like eth.limo and eth.cd enable users to access or create Web3/Web2 profile pages based on ENS services. Others, such as Data2.cash and Pulse, leverage zero-knowledge proof technology to help users protect their privacy, ensuring their social content is securely distributed only to intended audiences. Furthermore, projects like Solid Credentials Clients and DAuth assist users in verifying credentials. Most of these projects contribute significantly to the prosperity of the Web3 social ecosystem, which we deeply admire.
In this round’s public goods grantees, we also observed many projects offering diverse value. ZKP2P provides a trustless peer-to-peer (P2P) fiat-to-crypto entry and exit powered by ZK (zero-knowledge) technology.
Both OpenBuild and Glacier Network empower developers and strengthen decentralized application infrastructure. Discoco Lab and Concrete are building infrastructure for Layer 2 solutions—one targeting Bitcoin Layer 2, the other an application-specific Rollup with built-in digital physics.
Tokenary focuses on delivering a superior Web3 experience for Apple Safari users, highlighting the importance of accessibility and inclusivity in driving adoption.
Web3 Social
1. eth.limo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eth_limo
Website: https://eth.limo
eth.limo is a free public ENS gateway that enables users to access Ethereum-native dApps and content. There's significant demand among projects and users seeking to leverage ENS dWeb sites for improved accessibility. Research shows traffic to ENS dWebsites is growing rapidly. Currently, the eth.limo gateway handles an average of 3-6 million requests per day. The raw traffic to eth.limo primarily comes from DAOs, DeFi applications and their related products/services, SEO crawlers, and new projects within the community. On the long tail, eth.limo serves various independent dWeb sites ranging from personal resumes and portfolios to customized NFT art projects. The ENS protocol and community will greatly benefit from increased adoption of easily resolvable ENS domains. A unique aspect of the eth.limo service is that no special configuration is required—once an ENS domain is properly configured, the eth.limo gateway automatically resolves its content.
Eth.limo (LIMO) is a privacy-preserving ENS gateway enabling users to access Ethereum-native dApps and content. LIMO represents a shift in dWeb adoption by providing alternative access to ENS-resolvable domains.
It further advances public gateway services by enforcing strong privacy guarantees, such as never logging IP addresses or performing TCP fingerprinting (a process where remote sites or services collect minimal information about a user's machine to create a unique profile). It also actively blocks FLoC (an algorithm developed by Google to track and associate users based on browsing history).
LIMO supports every ENS-compatible storage layer, allowing users to utilize IPFS, Arweave, and Swarm ContentHashes. Additionally, it supports CCIP-Read for L2 and off-chain lookups, emoji and Unicode domains, fallback record checks, and on-demand ENS subdomain certificates.
In the future, LIMO will enhance accessibility and improve developer experience through a suite of modern deployment tools. Examples include hot caching (real-time dynamic updates of ENS mapping caches when on-chain records change), reverse lookup (searching ENS names by IPFS CID or content hash), and decentralizing the LIMO infrastructure via a community-run content delivery network (CDN).
2. Data2.cash
Twitter: https://twitter.com/data2_cash
Website: https://data2.cash
Demo: https://demo.data2.cash
Data2.cash is a user data asset trading protocol designed to empower users to own the value created by their data and form a composable user profiling layer.
While users maintain control over their data and earn passive income from it, data consumers can access user data via the Data2.cash API. New applications no longer need to collect user data from scratch; by connecting to the data layer, they gain immediate access to rich, aggregated user data.
Users import metadata (e.g., wallet accounts, Twitter accounts, GitHub accounts, etc.) from data collectors into their account vaults. Tags are extracted from this metadata, and later, users can generate zero-knowledge proofs from their tags and link them to their ZK avatars. Data consumers use the Data2.cash API to search for ZK identifiers using specific tags and pay for these searches, rewarding ZK identifier owners for providing their data.
3. Solid Credentials Client
Twitter: Twitter.com/otherJackson
Website: https://o.team
Today, credentials are handled centrally. Services typically rely on centralized KYC software providers (e.g., LexisNexis or Onfido) to verify individuals' identities. With verifiable credentials, intermediaries are no longer needed. It only requires a trusted issuer to sign the credential, a wallet to hold it, and a verifier interested in reading it.
The goal of Solid Credentials Client is to allow anyone to become an issuer, holder, or verifier, eliminating the need for identity verification intermediaries.
4. DAuth Network
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DauthNetwork
Website: https://dauth.network
DAuth is a novel approach that adapts Web2-style authentication mechanisms to the Web3 ecosystem while ensuring decentralization and protecting user privacy.
DAuth allows users to log in with their Web2 identities in a privacy-conscious, permissionless, and verifiable manner.
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When users use DAuth, they can directly use their Web2 social accounts while keeping their data confidential.
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How is it permissionless? DAuth integrates ZK proofs to allow user verification without holding private keys.
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Regarding verifiability, DAuth's proofs can be verified both on-chain and off-chain to ensure flexibility and security.
DAuth can lower the barrier for new users—those with Web2 social accounts can log in confidentially using their existing data. This could help drive mass adoption of the Web3 ecosystem and bring in more users.
5. Ensō Collective
Twitter: https://twitter.com/enso_collective
Website: https://ensocollective.xyz
Ensō Collective leverages blockchain transactions and Web3 reputation to deliver a social commerce experience that values curation over volume, enabling users to easily discover and purchase items truly aligned with their tastes.
Built on Lens Protocol, the platform connects brands and designers with fashion influencers, allowing them to profit from on-chain attribution.
Key features include:
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Save posts: Save publications to public or private boards
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Split collect: Multiple parties involved in creating a publication receive revenue after collection
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Affiliate dividends: Original creators with influence and audience receive a percentage share of collection fees
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Multi-collect shopping: Save collected items to a shopping cart
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Address collect: Certain publications result in physical items shipped by the brand after collection
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Public goods: Share rewards in profiles and feeds
6. FAST
Website: https://shriank.me/about/
FAST is building a cross-chain, cross-messaging-platform native AI bot to allow users to do the following as quickly as possible:
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Onboard to cryptocurrency and create secure wallets.
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Interact with various crypto DeFi protocols using text only.
The project aims to onboard billions of new users into crypto through messaging platforms they already love and use, thereby helping the crypto ecosystem. It will also drive adoption across various crypto protocols, as users can easily interact with them via natural text interfaces.
7. TonUP
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tonup_io
Website: https://tonup.io/
TonUp is an outstanding launchpad platform operating on the TON blockchain, dedicated to identifying and nurturing high-potential assets and showcasing new opportunities to the entire community.
Two projects have launched on TonUp, with over 2,000 participants raising more than $260,000. With a thriving community of over 200,000 members, TonUp is committed to expanding its impact on the TON blockchain and continuing to explore ways to make greater contributions.
8. Dhive
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dhive_Official
Website: https://www.dhive.io/
Dhive is an all-in-one hub where governance meets vibrant community dialogue. Monitor proposals, participate in decentralized forums, and get personalized notifications. Core features:
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Real-time governance proposals: Stay updated on the latest governance proposals from numerous Web3 communities
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Decentralized discussion forum: Engage in decentralized conversations similar to Reddit
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Instant notifications: Receive timely alerts about new proposals, posts, and discussions matching your interests
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Trusted interactions: Boost your profile credibility. Showcase your Web3 identity and interact with higher trustworthiness
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Personalized community recommendations: Communities recommended based on your token holdings
By aggregating governance proposals and encouraging open discussions, Dhive simplifies and makes decentralized decision-making more transparent. This supports Mask Network's goal of enabling a smooth transition to Web3 and contributes to the evolution and improvement of decentralized networks. Essentially, Dhive aims to foster community engagement and collective decision-making.
9. eth.cd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethdotcd
Website: https://eth.cd
eth.cd is a Web3 social networking platform built on the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), creating dynamic, decentralized profiles based on users’ ENS records. eth.cd gamifies user engagement through leaderboards and leverages blockchain technology to integrate social networking features such as decentralized messaging and community building.
Each ENS domain represents a unique profile. When someone browses a profile created by eth.cd (e.g., talk hidayath.eth.cd), they see rich social interactions and content. The page dynamically displays the user’s Twitter feed, GitHub repositories and activity highlights, along with engaging Instagram posts—all seamlessly integrated. Additionally, visitors can preview the user’s IPFS website content via the content hash linked to their ENS. Moreover, eth.cd continuously expands its integration capabilities to ensure each ENS profile becomes a comprehensive hub, offering visitors a holistic view of the user’s digital presence across platforms.
eth.cd is highly popular within the ENS community. This feature-rich application acts as a catalyst for boosting Web3 social engagement, providing users with seamless tools to connect and showcase their presence.
10. Pulse
Twitter: @Frankc_eth, @orbuloeth, @limone_eth
Website: https://pulse-indol.vercel.app
Pulse is a mobile-first social app built on Lens and Farcaster. By developing a dynamic recommendation engine that considers your on-chain social graph (posts and likes on Lens/Farcaster, POAPs you've collected, etc.) and in-app interactions, it surfaces content tailored to you. Content is consumed in a Tinder-like experience: swipe left (skip), right (like), up (super like—and mint on-chain). Authors remain hidden until users like the content, preventing bias and giving new creators a chance to be noticed. Finally, authors who receive over 10 super likes earn a credential based on their on-chain reputation.
On-Chain Games
1. This Cursed Machine
Twitter: https://twitter.com/movingcastles_
Website: https://github.com/Moving-Castles/this-cursed-machine
Cursed Machine is an open-ended on-chain world. You use your employee terminal to build, connect, and operate machines you can use to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, other players make this goal highly competitive.
Cursed Machine is the culmination of Moving Castles' experiments and projects over the past year. They’ve developed several original primitives for this game, combined in a novel way, and will open-source and document them for others to use. These include:
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Multiplayer on-chain resource and control circuit editor
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Initial terminal-based interface and hidden information to encourage community frontend development
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Pods are ECS entities storing user inventories, connections, and machines, serving as composable multi-user agents for future games
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Pods can act as material production factories for other environments and games, part of a woven-world vision
2. Stratagems
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stratagems_eth
Website: https://stratagems.eth.limo/
Stratagems is an infinite board game—a persistent, permissionless game where players compete for control of the board using a set of specific colors.
Thus, “Stratagems” is first and foremost a social game. Its main inspiration comes from conquest.eth, which successfully used simple mechanics to create a deep social game. Stratagems further explores this by adopting even simpler rules and minimizing cost dispersion through actions taken over a week-long period. It works because much of the gameplay unfolds in conversation and strategy between players. While maximally on-chain, Stratagems extends its gameplay by offering engaging off-chain experiences with associated social complexity.
Stratagems is a unique social coordination experiment. It also demonstrates that new types of games are possible even on high-cost networks like Ethereum mainnet. And as a game, if successful, it would clearly attract significant attention.
3. Jimu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Reg_Horace
Jimu is a modular development toolkit built on Starknet and toolchains for creating on-chain games and autonomous worlds using Cairo. Recognizing that many Web2 developers may be unfamiliar with Starknet and Cairo, Jimu strives to bridge the gap and encourage traditional Web2 developers to venture into Web3 on-chain game development.
To achieve this, Jimu has developed a set of modulé development tools that simplify the transition for developers unfamiliar with the Web3 landscape.
4. PixeLAW
Twitter: https://twitter.com/0xPixeLAW
Website: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/pixelaw-kvnqe
PixeLAW is an attempt to build on very primitive autonomous worlds, allowing players to govern, play, and interact on a pixel layer. Each pixel is programmable, making the world interoperable and permissionless. Creators can alter the world state and introduce new logic by changing the open system of pixel components. To demonstrate this, the PixeLAW team is building three games within PixeLAW (e.g., Snake, Drawing, Rock-Paper-Scissors) that can affect each other’s states. To ensure a decentralized world, PixelDAO manages the fundamental rules of pixels.
5. Minters World
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mintersworld
Website: https://www.mintersworld.com/
Minters World is a game studio building Rhascau: a fully on-chain racing game. Through Rhascau, they’ve developed a new way for people to compete for on-chain assets.
Rhascau offers a new type of social and multiplayer entertainment for the broader crypto space. Friends can join together and race for on-chain assets. Fastest wins! They’re also developing economically sustainable methods to run fully on-chain games on broad-scale rollups while establishing proper incentives for players.
6. FunBlocks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FunBlocksFun
Website: https://medium.com/@funblocksfun
FunBlocks is a Chinese media outlet and gaming community focused on on-chain games. FunBlocks believes the core of Web3 spirit lies in openness and composability—only on-chain games have the potential to achieve this. At the same time, the essence of games is bringing fun to players, which is where the name FunBlocks originates.
The entire on-chain gaming industry is still in its early development stages. FunBlocks remains committed to freely reporting the latest progress and developments in on-chain gaming. FunBlocks will continue producing high-quality content and better promoting the concept of on-chain games to serve the Chinese community.
7. Mississippi
Twitter: https://twitter.com/0xMississippi
Website: https://official-website-lovat.vercel.app/
Mississippi is a fully on-chain PVP game where players compete for limited resources in a setting resembling wanderers’ caves.
FOCG/AW will bring new labor relations between developers and asset formation models, triggering a new wave. Mississippi is a pioneer of this wave.
8. Loot Underworld
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lootunderworld
Website: https://lootunder.world/
Loot Underworld is built on Starknet, extending and complementing the systems of the Realms.World ecosystem.
Loot Underworld aims to build an autonomous underworld—a living world full of drama, stories, and dangers waiting to be explored and shaped by its residents.
Goals of Loot Underworld:
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Infrastructure work, such as migrating room generation to Starknet, as detailed in their FH Origins grant proposal—most of which is already complete
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Building and releasing a beta client to interact with the underworld (in progress)
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Initial integration with the Realms ecosystem, including exploring mechanisms to map the underworld to each realm, entrances to the underworld, introducing new resource types, and simple resource cycling between upper and lower worlds (they are collaborating with Realms on these mechanisms)
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Skateboard experience
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Gradually adding and testing other systems, such as autonomous generative AI art/asset engines and narrative AI systems, spatial interfaces; introducing systems like portals and probabilistic risk generators.
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Creating more than one simple gameplay experience atop subsystems, such as a dungeon exploration experience with epic flair.
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9. dmstfctn — Godmode Chronicles
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dmstfctn
Website: http://dmstfctn.net/
Godmode Chronicles is an emerging fully on-chain narrative game being developed by artist duo dmstfctn and Paul Seidler using MUD 2.0. In Godmode Chronicles, a thousand ancient chronicles have been recovered, each listing humanity’s ongoing training behaviors for computer vision—failures, successes, and cheats. Players obtain a chronicle from the vault and collaboratively use this mundane information to tell compelling stories. This data originates from a separate AI training game developed by dmstfctn (godmodeepochs.com), played by 2,000 users since July 2023, with the data being submitted (verified) onto the blockchain.
The game draws inspiration from Hayden White’s historiography and story games like Epitaph.
The core idea driving game development is that players can write history without having to participate in it, and stories about human behavior and interaction can be more compelling than the events themselves.
10. AW Research
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AW_Research
Website: https://chedao.notion.site/AW-Research-Collection-234dcfb1fc4441f9b0c14725b01fb921?pv
AW Research is an institution dedicated to research on autonomous worlds, supported by CheDAO.
Current operations mainly fall into three key areas:
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Timely updates on blockchain games, providing real-time coverage of events within the autonomous worlds ecosystem.
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Blockchain game tutorials, strategy sharing, and exclusive interviews, offering gameplay guides, leaderboard strategies, and exclusive interviews with key figures in the autonomous worlds community, aiming to provide firsthand insights into these individuals and projects.
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Global autonomous worlds gatherings and hacker houses, organizing global meetups for the autonomous worlds community and hosting hacker houses to promote innovation and collaboration in this exciting field.
11. WASD
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WASD_0x
Website: https://witter.com/WASD_0x
WASD is an on-chain media organization producing content about on-chain games and autonomous worlds. WASD publishes articles three times a week on Mirror covering various on-chain games, infrastructure, and trends, and hosts Spaces on X.
They also actively participate in events worldwide, such as forming on-chain game alliances and hosting tournaments and esports leagues.
WASD helps the Web3 ecosystem by providing educational content and research on on-chain games and autonomous worlds via Mirror. In the four and a half months since launch, WASD has covered dozens of on-chain games and related infrastructure projects.
They’ve also hosted numerous community events, directly helping players enter games. This includes forming an on-chain game alliance (WASD guild) in Primodium and organizing the first esports league for Sky Strife (World Sky League).
12. grug's lair
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrugsLair
Website: https://home.grugslair.xyz/
Grug's Lair, as an innovative on-chain game studio, fills a critical gap in the current gaming ecosystem by focusing on building fully on-chain games based on various autonomous worlds. Grug's Lair empowers players with actual ownership of in-game assets (such as characters, items, etc.), which they can trade, sell, or retain across games. This approach not only enhances the gaming experience by adding real value and scarcity to assets but also pioneers a new gaming economic model that is more transparent, secure, and player-centric.
Public Goods
1. ZKP2P
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zkp2p
Website: https://zkp2p.xyz/
ZKP2P is the first ZK-powered, trustless peer-to-peer (P2P) fiat-to-crypto entry and exit.
Initially, ZKP2P integrates permissionlessly with Venmo, a popular US payment platform, to convert USD into USDC. This can be extended to any payment platform in any country and any crypto asset.
As cryptocurrency evolves (DeFi, NFTs, social, on-chain games), the necessity for seamless and trustless interoperability between fiat and crypto assets becomes increasingly important. Existing on-ramp solutions fail to meet this need: lacking global inclusivity (Coinbase isn't available everywhere), direct ramps charge high fees (up to 5%), involve complex KYC processes, require multiple transactions/slow execution, and cannot compose with smart contracts (e.g., cannot directly use USD to buy FriendTech keys).
2. Cloudline
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethtective
Website: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/laputa-fg9ku
Cloudline is a fully on-chain massively multiplayer online game (FOCMMO) that sustainably rewards ongoing player cooperation. Designed to appeal to both crypto enthusiasts and casual players, Cloudline offers an easy-entry experience akin to Farmville but with creative, engaging social gameplay. It uses account abstraction and gas subsidies to simplify Web3 adoption and seamlessly guides players through the game experience, drastically reducing the complexity of Web3. In Cloudline, players create and cultivate communities into beautiful digital cloud tourism destinations. These cloudlines can serve purposes beyond in-game interactions and autonomous world methods—they can be used to promote local businesses in-game, sell advertising space, or support charitable causes, blending exciting gameplay with real-world impact.
Cloudline is a pastoral, lighthearted, romantic multiplayer city builder. It’s a novel and unexplored genre well-suited for intermittent gaming sessions. Our ambition is to attract creative, cooperative, and even casual players seeking experiences found in Minecraft, Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, and to explore uncharted possibilities in Web3 gaming.
3. OpenBuild
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenBuildxyz
Website: https://openbuild.xyz/
OpenBuild is an open-source Web3 developer community. OpenBuild aims to help Web2 developers transition smoothly into Web3 by providing comprehensive Web3 development courses and guiding them into open-source projects. Additionally, bounty opportunities are offered, helping developers enhance practical skills while earning financial rewards.
The OpenBuild team consists of core members from renowned Web2 open-source and language communities (such as Rust, Python), as well as notable contributors deeply involved in the Web3 developer community for over five years. Currently, OpenBuild has started deploying developers across multiple ecosystems such as Celestia, Starknet, Solana, with all contributions made openly.
4. Glacier Network
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Glacier_Labs
Website: https://www.glacier.io/
Glacier is building a modular, dynamic, and scalable NoSQL database for large-scale decentralized applications. Glacier empowers decentralized applications (DApps) to build on decentralized databases (DDB). It provides programmable data composition solutions powered by ZK-rollups for easy handling of data within GlacierDB.
Technical details:
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Modular and decentralized, secured by ZK-rollup
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Each row in a collection is a dynamic NFT
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Fully supports MongoDB-like NoSQL and CRUD operations
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Uses stablecoins and tokens for data management and incentives
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Each database can be managed by a DAO
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Applies ZK proofs to verify queries in cache
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Integrates cryptographic protocols to control column-level access permissions
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Monetizes datasets based on the X2E economic model
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Enables low-cost development of Web3 dApps
Most Web3 dApps temporarily store user and product data on centralized cloud services due to the lack of developer-friendly decentralized storage tools, leading to pseudo-decentralization, insecure data, poor scalability and capacity, and non-interoperable smart contracts.
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