API3 Marketing, Nov-Dec 2021

It’s that time of year. I’d like to apologize for not publishing a November report as planned. The end of November was right in the middle of the Bitcoin Bankathon and something had to give. So this report covers November and most of December. We’ll call it mid-cycle.

The Bitcoin Bankathon

The Bitcoin Bankathon was a success. In case you missed it, we posted a short recap. Here are some reasons why it mattered from a marketing perspective.

Latin America has become a global focal point for blockchain adoption around Bitcoin. The Bankathon helped establish API3 as the oracle for DeFi on Bitcoin.
The driving force behind blockchain adoption in Latin America is fundamentally different. It’s about financial inclusion, protecting wealth from inflation, and banking the unbanked.
Banking is a use case where the Airnode Request-Response Protocol (RRP) excels. You can’t access your bank account from Web3 with a data feed. You can with Airnode.

API3 is platform agnostic and intended to work with any blockchain platform but DeFi on Bitcoin is coming soon. API3 is at the center of it.

API3 Product Roadmap

We published a product roadmap. We agree that decentrally-governed projects can’t be roadmapped in the traditional sense, we also understand that the API3 community would like to have a picture of what the active contributors have in mind. So we met in the middle and made an abstract roadmap without timelines that shows what the collective is currently thinking.

This kind of learning from all stakeholders and adapting is one of the most rewarding aspects of being in a DAO. We look forward to more community feedback like this. API3 community, we’re listening.

Airnode Is Ready for Takeoff

Airnode 0.2 and 0.3 were released. As we discussed here, Airnode is ready to build on. The API3 Alliance is formidable. Airnode First-Party APIs are available. The marketing team focus has shifted from the supply side of the Web3 API Economy to the demand side.

Now our attention is on Beacons. We’ve talked a little about them and why they’re so important but stay tuned. We’ll share more in January.

Focus on Developers

As we’ve shifted marketing focus to the demand side, that means Web3 developers are our highest priority target audience. The marketing team is in the process of learning to be more technical. We need to empathize with our target customers in order to serve them well.

Ben and Brian are leading the effort to launch a developer portal on api3.org as a starting point for Web3 developers. It hasn’t been announced yet but feel free to take a sneak peek and offer feedback in Discord.

We’ve created a place on Github for the marketing team. This is where we will build demos, code samples, proof-of-concepts, and other projects that are useful to developers but not might not fit into the main api3dao space.

Team Member Changes

With Marketing Cycle 5 we made some adjustments. Even more changes have occurred since then. Here’s the scoop.

Ugur is transitioning off the marketing team and into the core tech team as a product owner. We’ll miss Ugur… but not too much because as product owner he’s working very closely with the marketing team and is helping keep the teams in sync and working cohesively. Ugur is a huge asset to API3 and is now better positioned to contribute. Congratulations Ugur!

Of course, this leave a gap in social media and event coordination. For the time being we’re making social media more of a team effort until we find a new social media lead. If you know anyone who might fit the bill, send them our way. I (Ryan) am currently organizing ETHDenver, our next big event.

Finally, I would like to introduce a new team member, Can, who will be starting with community growth and visual design. Can has already proven to be both talented and self-motivated to have an impact. Welcome aboard Can!

See You in 2022

We’re really looking forward to what 2022 will bring for both API3 and Web3 in general. If 2021 was the year of NFTs, let’s make 2022 the year that Web2 merges with Web3.

Happy New Year!
Ryan