XION Learning Series: Inception
A deep dive into how we arrived at building a consumer-first chain, our mission, and core principles.
Check out this blog post in español, 中国人, 日本語, tiếng-việt, 한국인, français, русский, українська, indonesian, български, Polski, filipino and italiano (non-English translations are created by the community and may have some discrepancies from the original)
It begins with the question that started it all:
How can we redefine ownership if only the highly technical have access?
Burnt Banksy
Prioritizing the Cooperative
Our journey began with identifying our own perspective on Web3.
We started by acknowledging that Web3 offers a versatile framework that can be harnessed for both individual and cooperative financial benefits.
That said, there has been much more focus on the individual level, through DeFi and the pervasiveness of speculative use cases. For us, the opportunity was in focusing on the latter — cooperative benefits that intersect with societal needs.
Given our focus on creating widespread change, we firmly believe in the transformative potential of the cooperative angle, as it aligns with our mission to create a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future. Therefore, our focus is on leveraging Web3 to address communal needs, fostering a sense of shared ownership and collaboration. By prioritizing the collective good over individual profit, we aim to empower communities, strengthen bonds, and drive meaningful change.
User Opportunities and Challenges
We also brought user voices to the table by speaking to countless “real world” people about their thoughts on crypto and the broader concept of an ownership model as it exists today. What we found was that “Crypto is a Scam” is still a firmly held belief among most people outside the industry. They simultaneously feel the brokenness of the ownership model in a post-Web2 world. Many are seeking a better ownership dynamic, one that is based on aligned interests, cooperative structures, and financial autonomy. In short, the hallmarks of a decentralized model that Web3 can provide. It raised the question:
If everyone is looking for the benefits of decentralized ownership, why is the industry still struggling so hard to find the path to mass-adoption?
Removing Functional and Cultural Barriers
In our eyes, there are two challenges for this — functional and cultural. We built XION to create an ecosystem that addresses both.
First, the functional challenges: XION aims to overcome the audience scalability limitations that arise when the technology's builders and users are one and the same. It supports products that meet the needs of real people by enabling frictionless user experiences that incorporate familiar Web2 design elements and flows, while also providing the benefits and possibilities of Web3. In short, this means abstracting away the complexities of crypto. Just like the internet, users shouldn't be required to understand all the technical intricacies of how it works in order to benefit from its use.
Next, the cultural challenges: The industry’s branding challenges, from the word “crypto” to the concept of tokens, has been shaped by front-page news stories about bad actors. XION addresses this by attempting to remove industry terms that create barriers to entry for newcomers and curating an ecosystem of products, projects, and partners excited about creating a space for Web3 to flourish without relying on crypto-native lingo or references.
The XION Philosophy
With those goals in mind, we built XION around four key principles, the sum of which we believe are a recipe for creating a new breed of user-first applications of Web3.
XION | PRINCIPLES OF A CONSUMER-FIRST BLOCKCHAIN
FRICTIONLESS
Specially architected to remove technical barriers so developers of all backgrounds can focus on real-time opportunities, novel use-cases, and creative applications of Web3 for a variety of retail-users.
MODULAR
Our consumer-ready toolkit includes native account abstraction, seamless on-and-off ramping, credit/debit card purchasing, safe mobile support, NFC integrations, fiat denomination, infrastructure specialization for user onboarding, and more.
PERMISSIONED
XION's walled-garden approach ensures that the community can foster a bespoke ecosystem of premium, trusted participants. One that is consistently tailored to meet the needs of real-world retail users and truly expand the market reach of Web3.
RECIPROCAL
XION-based projects will continuously benefit from the network effects of all products built by the core team, creating exponential value across the entire blockchain ecosystem.
Our approach is driven by our desire to create a more scalable and accessible future for Web3 that puts real people at its center. Purpose built with this in mind, XION is poised to usher in a new paradigm of mass consumer adoption.