Dialogue with Galxe co-founder Harry Zhang: Why did we change our name? How did we go from 0 to 1?

Interviewee: Harry Zhang, Co-founder of Galxe

Interviewed by: Nianqing, Chain Catcher

In May 2021, "Project Galaxy" was born to provide navigation and positioning for every astronaut exploring the vast universe of Web3, and to issue "bank identity certificates."

Sixteen months later, the initial plan evolved from "spark" to "galaxy." Project Galaxy has rebranded as Galxe, no longer just a "project," but an evolved and more developed ecosystem.

From the initial "Web3 resume," to the data credential network, and then to a larger DID market. Galxe drives market growth through data credentials, issuing soul-bound tokens to increase community engagement and thereby enhance brand awareness. Currently, Galxe has partnered with over 760 protocols/communities and conducted more than 5,000 events, helping projects accurately match users through gamified marketing methods and incentivizing user participation in the community.

A recent popular example is the Arbitrum Odyssey event. In June this year, Arbitrum announced an 8-week exploration event for Arbitrum ecosystem projects, encouraging players to engage with ecosystem projects including cross-chain bridges, DeFi, NFTs, and games, with different interaction tasks set each week, such as cross-chain transfers and staking. Galxe provided data credentials for this event and incentivized user participation through Galxe OAT (On-chain Achievement Token), NFTs, and other forms. Although the event has now been paused, 56 projects on the Arbitrum chain participated in this competition, reaching more users in the process.

Additionally, Galxe is also one of the important projects in the DID track. Galxe ID is becoming an important tool for recording on-chain and off-chain footprints in the Web3 world, with over 4.2 million Galxe ID users already.

Galxe ID labels each address by issuing credentials, thus achieving clear and segmented user profile identification. It attempts to integrate user data across different chains, on-chain and off-chain, as well as Web2 and Web3, aggregating scattered data to form a more comprehensive personal data system and network.

In terms of financing, Galxe completed a $10 million funding round in January this year, led by Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital, with multiple institutions participating, and conducted a public offering on CoinList in February.

Related Reading: “Multicoin Capital: Detailed Analysis of the Features and Potential of Web3 Credential Network Project Galaxy”

Recently, Chain Catcher interviewed Harry Zhang, co-founder of Galxe. He shared with us why Galxe has rapidly developed over the past year, the reasons behind the rebranding, future plans, and the current state of the DID track.

1. Chain Catcher: Please briefly introduce the development history and team background of Galxe.

Harry Zhang: Most of us joined the crypto industry around 2017 or 2018. I met my co-founder Charles Wayn while studying at the University of California, Berkeley. We were both involved in the Berkeley Chinese Entrepreneurs Association (ACE) startup club and served as presidents of the association.

After graduation, we started our entrepreneurial journey, working on two products, Lino Network and DLive.tv, at our first company. DLive is still one of the largest decentralized live streaming platforms, with a peak of over ten million MAU (monthly active users). In 2019, both products were acquired. After that, we quickly moved on to create Galxe, and our team now has about fifty members distributed around the world.

2. Chain Catcher: Recently, the project was renamed from Project Galaxy to Galxe. Besides the product perspective, what other specific considerations were there?

Harry Zhang: There are several main reasons: First, we are no longer a small "project"; our product positioning will lean more towards "application." We plan to launch different applications and products. More specifically, we want to build an ecosystem based on Web3 credentials.

Second, there are too many projects with the name "Galaxy." We want to have a name that belongs to us.

Third, the pronunciation of Galxe is Gal-x-e, which sounds almost the same as Galaxy when said quickly. Our original intention has not changed; we will continue to head towards the "galaxy," a destination full of infinite imagination.

3. Chain Catcher: Why did you initially think of benchmarking against Web3's LinkedIn?

Harry Zhang: Because we initially wanted to build an open collaborative credential data network. Credentials encompass many aspects, including behavioral data and personal reputation, while Web3 LinkedIn represents your behavioral data, which can reflect your abilities and contributions to a certain extent. However, this is just one use case of Galxe and does not represent our entirety.

The biggest problem with Web2 is the data barriers between different products; data across platforms is not shared. Moreover, this data does not belong to users, and they have no actual control over it. Once we break these data barriers, products can enhance user experience better. We need to change these issues in Web3. Galxe attempts to aggregate user behavioral data, contribution data, and personal resume information, making the data open for everyone to use.

4. Chain Catcher: Over the past year, Galxe has developed very quickly. Looking back, what do you think Galxe primarily satisfies for project parties? How did you initially come up with this product entry point?

Harry Zhang: In February and March of last year, when we first started Galxe, we aimed to solve a very simple pain point. We found that all communities needed a way to incentivize user participation in projects. Additionally, we saw the rise of NFTs at that time and believed that NFTs could be an effective medium for long-term user incentives and building membership systems.

So our initial idea was very simple: to help communities operate through NFTs and data. At that time, projects like Uniswap and Sushi were incentivizing users through liquidity mining, which essentially meant giving away money, and this kind of incentive was clearly unsustainable. We also drew on many traditional brand operation methods to see how they incentivized users to use products long-term. It turned out that helping communities with incentives was indeed a rigid demand, and currently, over 700 projects are using Galxe to establish long-term relationships with users.

5. Chain Catcher: When did the explosive growth of Galxe's data begin? How was the process from 0 to 1 achieved?

Harry Zhang: I think the main reason is that the product truly meets the current demand, and word-of-mouth builds up accordingly.

Galxe's development can be divided into several milestones: The first milestone was in September last year. In the third quarter of last year, we launched the first version of the product, initially helping several DeFi projects like Yearn and Cream with market operations, which were quite effective. One of our earliest major clients was Yearn Finance, which launched an NFT project called Woofy on Galxe. The results were excellent; three days after the event started, the number of Yearn token holders increased by about 34%, and the minting volume of Woofy NFTs exceeded 1,300 in a short time. After this event, Galxe established its brand. So, after continuously accumulating four or five successful cases, the product naturally gained traction.

Later, at the end of August and the beginning of September, we launched the "Shadowy Super Coder" event in collaboration with 13 projects, including Tenderly, Alchemy, Polygon, Gitcoin, and Ankr. "Shadowy Super Coder" was a popular meme in the Web3 community, originating from a U.S. senator's description of crypto developers as "a group of shadowy, faceless super coders and miners." This event leveraged this meme to help project parties find the true core contributors and developers of Ethereum.

This targeted marketing campaign ultimately rewarded 110,294 Ethereum addresses that had deployed at least one smart contract on the Ethereum mainnet before August 1, 2021, helping these 13 projects find their target audience while executing a very successful marketing campaign. Therefore, September was a milestone for us, truly establishing our brand.

The second milestone was at the end of last year when we made a series of product iterations. For example, we updated the Dashboard, allowing project parties to create events and data more autonomously on our platform. After opening up to a certain extent, data growth accelerated.

6. Chain Catcher: Galxe is building a Web3 digital credential network. How should this concept be understood? What is its relationship with DID?

Harry Zhang: The digital credential network attempts to aggregate all data surrounding individuals, including behavioral data, achievement data, reputation data, and contribution data, etc. For example, whether you have provided liquidity in Uniswap, whether you have been liked by influencers on Twitter, or whether you have contributed code and contracts on GitHub, etc. Specifically, for use cases, project parties typically obtain user contribution credentials during airdrops. Alternatively, a more direct metric could be a scoring mechanism similar to Sesame Credit.

7. Chain Catcher: Many project parties have identity verification and binding credential needs, but they still often use traditional platforms like Gleam. How does Galxe differ from these platforms?

Harry Zhang: Gleam is a very simple task system; it does not actually accumulate data or utilize data to expand more functionalities. We are actually in an inclusive relationship with Gleam. Galxe is doing two main things: first, accumulating data, i.e., building a digital credential network; second, we provide an infrastructure that allows more people to build more applications based on this data, as our database is permissionless. However, we are also developing more functionalities based on this data and hope to have more project parties fully utilize this data in the future.

8. Chain Catcher: Currently, there are many explorations in the DID field, based on domain names, credentials, scoring, etc. How do you categorize the specific directions and architectures of DID? What are the advantages of the digital credential model?

Harry Zhang: We can understand the concept of identity from two dimensions. The first is "how to identify who you are." I think ENS is addressing this issue, but its positioning is limited to the Ethereum ecosystem and does not extend to multi-chain or cross-chain. However, a complete data set must include information about individuals across multiple chains and even multiple addresses. Currently, Galxe is also aggregating multi-chain data and supports networks like Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Solana, as well as linking data from social platforms like Twitter, GitHub, and Discord.

The second is "how to describe a richer profile of this person" once identified. This part is also what we are building at the credential level.

9. Chain Catcher: Currently, many DID projects are issuing products similar to credentials/medals and do not recognize credentials issued by others. Could this lead to fragmented on-chain information for individuals?

Harry Zhang: I believe DID is still in a very early stage. First, people's positioning of DID is not particularly clear, and the entire track is still in a process of exploration and accumulation, without a universal standard formed yet. In fact, Galxe is trying to establish such a standard. I believe we are already the largest data credential network, and compared to other protocols, our data is more comprehensive. Therefore, we hope that as data quality continues to improve and accumulate, Galxe can establish an open network, inviting more people to build together.

"What exactly is a credential?" is also a question we have been pondering. Galxe already has some standards, but we are continuously improving them. In the next 1-2 quarters, we will update the Galxe credential standard system, covering many specific modules.

For example, it first needs a very clear storage module; second, a verification module, which is how to verify that this data is real and truly contributed by this user; in addition, there is a usage module, which is how data can be easily used on-chain and off-chain. Each module involves complex issues, such as how to store public data and how to store private data. Once privacy is involved, it requires more caution. These are all areas we need to continuously improve.

10. Chain Catcher: What is the biggest obstacle to the advancement of the DID track? At this stage, how can the industry solve the issues of large-scale adoption and implementation of DID, closely linking it with our reality?

Harry Zhang: I think the biggest obstacle is the urgent need to improve infrastructure; data accumulation is still very insufficient. Whether in terms of data dimensions or the identity verification layer mentioned earlier, the data is not adequate, and users across different chains are not enough to form a scale.

On top of that, two aspects need to be addressed: one is the credential layer, which we are already working on; the other is the identity verification layer. In the short term, we have not focused on this, but currently, Galxe ID will involve some functionalities, including binding different chains and on-chain and off-chain data to the same person. Besides these two points, DID also involves aspects of privacy protection.

Once these infrastructures are complete, the application scenarios can catch up. Although our system can already match over 6,000-7,000 databases, the infrastructure for user privacy is still relatively lacking.

11. Chain Catcher: Can DID address issues like bots to some extent? Does Galxe currently have relevant data and research in this area?

Harry Zhang: Preventing bot activity is indeed a practical issue that needs to be addressed. However, even Web2 cannot achieve 100% prevention of bots, as the essence of this matter is to increase the cost of malicious behavior. If restrictions are too strict, it may also inconvenience some genuine users. We can only help determine whether a user is a bot through more automated algorithms or larger data scales.

Preventing bot activity is actually one of the practical use cases for Galxe, and it is something we have always wanted to help project parties with. Of course, we are also aware that the data we currently have may not be sufficient. However, we are indeed making efforts in this area. In September, we will launch a product, one use case of which is to help project parties prevent bot activity.

Our goal is to create a permissionless platform in the future, with Galxe providing the underlying infrastructure, including a bot prevention system. However, we only provide different levels of bot prevention functionalities for project parties, such as increasing conditions like "account balance guaranteed to be above 200 U," allowing project parties to configure and use according to their needs.

12. Chain Catcher: A currently hot topic in the DID field is "soul-bound tokens." Vitalik is paying attention to this area. How do you view this new field, and will the development of Galxe OAT align with "soul-bound tokens"?

Harry Zhang: To be honest, I was quite shocked when I saw the paper Vitalik published, as many ideas in it about encoding a person's "commitments, credentials, and connections" through soul-bound tokens align very well with our long-term planning for Galxe. In fact, Galxe has always supported the concept of "soul-bound tokens," and many have already been put into use. In Vitalik's definition, soul-bound tokens are almost equivalent to our credentials, and Galxe OAT can also serve as a medium for binding soul tokens. Therefore, we strongly believe in the vision of soul-bound tokens proposed by Vitalik.

13. Chain Catcher: The term "soul-bound" may sound a bit "mystical" due to translation issues, but it can actually be a very functional concept with many practical application scenarios.

Harry Zhang: The English term "Soul Bound Token" originates from a specific term in the game "World of Warcraft." Soul-bound items refer to top-tier items that can only be bound to a specific game character, meaning they can only be used by the player themselves and cannot be transferred or sold to other players. "Soul-bound" in the game refers to something that belongs to you and is non-transferable. The Chinese translation may not be very intuitive.

But I understand that soul-bound tokens are credentials, a series of credentials. The more credentials you accumulate, the more valuable they become. A very practical example is that you could hold a soul-bound token that proves you have never been liquidated in protocols like Aave or Compound, demonstrating that you are a high-quality user. The benefit of holding these high-quality soul-bound tokens is that some projects may offer lower collateral rates to these reputable users to enhance their capital efficiency, allowing them to borrow more money. Therefore, there will definitely be many practical applications that can be built based on "soul-bound tokens," and they will be very valuable.

14. Chain Catcher: Recently, Galxe announced plans to launch an application sidechain on the BNB Chain. What specific considerations were there?

Harry Zhang: The entire Galxe protocol consists of three parts: storage, verification, and broadcasting. The broadcasting part involves broadcasting and using applications across different chains and off-chain. As our user base is gradually increasing, with Galxe ID already having about 4.2 million addresses, we want to develop some of the application scenarios on a sidechain for scalability.

Currently, our team has been testing on the sidechain for a while, but we still want to optimize some specific functionalities and underlying designs before officially launching the testnet.

15. Chain Catcher: What problems still exist in the DID track?

Harry Zhang: This field indeed has not seen many deployable applications yet. One reason is that the infrastructure is not complete enough, and another is that there is still no clear and unified consensus on the positioning of the DID concept. For example, many people may define profile-type products as DID, but I personally believe that this does not strictly qualify as true DID. The industry has not yet formed a complete standard for building DID, and everyone is playing their own game.

Moreover, what problems does DID aim to solve? The answer to this question is also not clear enough. Is it more about addressing a consumer-facing pain point or a business-facing pain point? Therefore, although there are many dazzling DID products on the market, we have not seen more implementations. Of course, I do not see this as a "problem," but rather as a "status quo," which is a very normal phenomenon in the early stages of industry development.