In-Depth Bob Ng, CTO of UXLINK: Unveiling the Data Innovations

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Introduction

UXLINK has achieved a significant milestone by surpassing 10 million registered users, marking a historic moment in both blockchain and the emerging field of SocialFi, being THE FIRST 10M user base in SocialFi. This announcement was made through UXLINK’s official website and Twitter account, confirming its status as the first product in these domains to achieve such a remarkable user base.

In light of this achievement, several questions regarding UXLINK’s user data merit exploration. To shed light on this matter, we interviewed Bob Ng, the Chief Technology Officer of UXLINK, delving into their user metrics:

Q1: Most blockchain projects measure their success based on the number of unique wallet addresses. Why does UXLINK emphasize “registered users” as a measure and how does it differ from the number of unique wallet addresses?

A1: The emphasis on “registered users” serves to address two key concerns within the crypto space:

1. There are too many invalid or sybil wallet addresses in the crypto space, which are meaningless and pollute the data.
2. We are a social platform and advocate for the concept of “people”/accounts because true social interaction involves connecting individuals. One person can have multiple wallets for different purposes.

Therefore, we use the concept of registered users for measurement. Registering as a user involves passing through three stages:

• 100% invitation-based – new users must be invited by acquaintances or partners within the UXLINK network and use an invitation code to register through Link-to-Earn.
• Requires human interaction to prove that the user is not a bot.
• Using UXLINK’s products.

Meeting these criteria qualifies as a registered user of UXLINK, so the number of registered users is less than the number of unique wallet addresses. Currently, UXLINK has surpassed 10 million registered users, with connections to authorized wallet addresses totaling 15 million. Each user can have multiple wallets.

Does every user have a wallet? Yes, if a user comes from Web2 without a wallet, we provide an MPC wallet. Even if this wallet has no assets for the time being, if the user contributes to the community, they are still valuable. Mass adoption through social interaction is our mission and responsibility.

Is every wallet associated with a user? Not necessarily. We have specific standards to anti-sybil accounts and keep millions of invalid or fake wallet addresses outside. Of course, we cannot block all of them and need to avoid mistakenly blocking genuine users.

Does every user have a social media account? Not necessarily. We fully respect user privacy. Some users only have a wallet, while others may have initially entered using a social media account but later cancelled it, and we still provide them with good service.

Q2: What is the concept of UXUY Holders? Does it refer to the number of holders of our token?

A2: Firstly, UXUY is a type of on-chain POW (Proof of Work) score for UXLINK, used to record and incentivize community user growth and interaction. It is non-transferable. UXUY is entirely generated through a publicly transparent formula, with no reserves or pre-minting, and all derived from community user POW “mining”. The key attributes are POW, on-chain, and non-transferable.

UXUY Holders must meet three criteria:

1. The wallets of registered users.
2. Contribution to community-defined POW activities and receipt of UXUY.
3. Claiming UXUY on-chain. In other words, if there is no claim, they are not considered UXUY holders.

Therefore, UXUY holders are all community contributors and Web3 users and are potential governance token holders. Currently, the number of UXUY holders is 5 million.

Will the number of UXUY holders increase? Yes, as long as there is ongoing community contribution, the number will increase until it exceeds 30 million registered users, at which point UXUY mining will cease. At that time, we believe a very positive network effect will have been established.

Will the number of UXUY holders decrease? Yes, if some holders exchange UXUY for other assets, the number will decrease, for example, by converting it into NFTs or governance tokens.

Q3: How many holders does UXLINK have, and what are the criteria?

A3: The measurement criteria for UXLINK holders include three dimensions: community contribution, on-chain interaction, and the number of assets in the wallet addresses.

Before the Token Generation Event (TGE), our approach was as follows: UXUY holders would exchange UXUY for NFTs of different levels once certain thresholds were reached. NFTs served as vouchers for airdrops, and before the TGE, holders would receive $UXLINK based on the level and quantity of their NFTs. Another round of “Sybil Burning” would also occur at that time.

So, to simplify, before the TGE: NFT holders = TOKEN holders.

After the TGE, the number of holders includes all legitimate and reasonable holders of UXLINK, including those who purchase tokens and continue to contribute to the community.

Currently, we have approximately 1,600,000 eligible holders, and this number will increase or decrease with the release of liquidity.

Q4: In the face of such a large number of registered users and holders, will we implement anti-sybil measures?

A4: Certainly, we will. Sybil accounts are indeed very common in WEB3, and the primary purpose of anti-sybil measures is to ensure the interests of a genuine and high-quality community. We will proceed in three steps:

Step one: Based on human verification or access compliance validation, we will identify wallet addresses as false and exclude them from the system. These accounts will not be counted as registered users, and they will not generate UXUY rewards from “link-to-earn”. While this step can block the majority of false accounts, it must not be too stringent to avoid inadvertently harming genuine users.

Step two: Upon entering the UXLINK network and generating UXUY rewards, we will further filter based on community contributions and activity levels. For example, if an account has been inactive for six months or has not successfully claimed UXUY, the rewards will be reclaimed and redistributed within the community to incentivize high-quality users. This is a reallocation process to ensure that only users who truly contribute value to the community receive incentives.

Step three: Before TGE, the community will conduct another round of anti-sybil measures, with the methods to be announced by the community. The reclaimed UXUY rewards will be reintroduced into the community to incentivize high-quality users.

By implementing these three steps, we aim to guarantee the quality, fairness, and efficiency of the community.

Q5: Many media outlets compare UXLINK to NOTCOIN, claiming that UXLINK’s on-chain data is better than NOTCOIN’s. What is your perspective on this?

A5: UXLINK and NOTCOIN belong to different domains; one is a social platform and infrastructure, while the other is a game. However, they share some similarities, both aiming for mass adoption as their mission and boasting a large user base. From my viewpoint, NOTCOIN has a larger overall user base, while UXLINK exhibits higher on-chain data and user stickiness. For instance, metrics like on-chain daily active users, monthly active users, as well as the ratio of daily active users to weekly active users and weekly active users to monthly active users, are higher for UXLINK compared to NOTCOIN.

Additionally, on-chain monthly active users represent over 50% of the total registered users for UXLINK, and UXLINK has a much higher number of holders compared to NOTCOIN before its TGE.

I believe this can be attributed to three main reasons:

1. The interaction level of users in social products is much deeper than in games. Users not only engage in social interactions such as SBT/SocialGraph, group activities, invitations, and learning check-ins but also participate in asset-related interactions like SWAP, Airdrop, Pre-Market, etc. On the other hand, interactions in NOTCOIN are relatively simpler, primarily Tap-to-Earn, which is comparatively shallower. The depth of interaction is determined by the nature of the respective platforms and is not indicative of superiority or inferiority.
2. User stickiness is closely related to social relationships and groups. The real-world social connections and our over ten thousand groups foster trust and lead to higher user retention rates.
3. Overall, it is also related to the user selection process mentioned above for UXLINK. After three rounds of anti-whale measures and filtering out fake accounts, although the total number of registered users may appear smaller, the quality has improved significantly.

Both UXLINK and NOTCOIN are excellent products and indeed provide effective paradigms from web2 to web3 and from off-chain to on-chain. There are many aspects in which we can learn from NOTCOIN, and we are looking forward to collaborating with them.

Future Product Development and Direction of UXLINK

Bob Ng: Returning to our essence, our goal is to establish trust through familiar social connections while serving as the social platform for users and the infrastructure for service developers.

In the future, we will collaborate with ecosystem partners to establish a socialized layer for asset generation, flow, and distribution. This will enable users to trust, safely, and easily utilize various applications without the need for complex cross-chain interactions, and to benefit from their own social assets. Moreover, we aim to empower developers to fully leverage our protocols, social relationships, and data to significantly enhance development efficiency and growth quality through modularized products and interfaces.