Onchain Guilds: A Web3 Primitive

Yield Guild Games (YGG) has evolved its industry-leading guild model by offering web3 guilds the opportunity to access its infrastructure and explore new ways of organizing as Onchain Guilds. By recording their membership, shared assets and activities on the blockchain, Onchain Guilds can build their web3 reputation as a group to uncover rewarding activities best suited to their skills.

YGG believes anyone should be able to join a guild of like-minded individuals and harness the power of web3 to achieve more and share in greater rewards. Onchain Guilds — or “OGs” — stand to empower web3 communities to discover economic opportunities together as a unit.

As outlined in the recently published Concept Paper, Onchain Guilds will form the foundation of YGG’s efforts moving forward. Built on the YGG Guild Protocol, Onchain Guilds are a web3 primitive, serving as the building blocks for guilds across the ecosystem. This structure will empower guilds to seamlessly explore, play, and earn rewards while leveraging the flexibility and scalability that Onchain Guilds provide.

How Web3 Reputation Empowers Onchain Guilds

Web3 reputation is established through YGG’s questing initiatives like the Guild Advancement Program (GAP) and Superquests. By building its web3 reputation, an Onchain Guild can attract members who share aligned skills, interests and goals. At the same time, it allows the guild to demonstrate to YGG’s partner projects that they are verifiably qualified and prepared to contribute their skills to the ecosystem.

Fundamental to the web3 reputation of any Onchain Guild are YGG-issued soulbound tokens (SBTs). These are non-transferable achievement badges that function similarly to how web2 cookies allow websites to provide users with personalized recommendations. However, rather than deliver targeted ads to drive spending, these “reputation cookies” serve up reward-earning opportunities.

With SBTs, YGG has crafted a reputation system to recognize and reward the achievements of participants in its questing programs. These badges have enabled YGG to identify its top performers and active contributors and connect them to its network of over 100 partners. The YGG Guild Protocol scales this process, allowing YGG to play matchmaker not only for individual members but for entire guilds.

“Web3 reputation is the basis of the Onchain Guild model,” said YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon. “You can build a reputation for being trustworthy and helpful and get rewarded for it. When you apply this at a guild level, now there’s social reinforcement for people to act in the interest of the entire group. This is one of the strongest traits of the Onchain Guild model.”

What Makes an Onchain Guild?

Onchain Guilds are made up of three core components: the guild itself, the assets it owns, and its onchain activities.

• Guilds
  Any group of individuals connected through common interests or shared activities can organize into an Onchain Guild. Membership is verified onchain through a member list only accessible to guild leaders, as well as an SBT given to members upon joining.
• Assets
  Each Onchain Guild manages its own treasury wallet, which stores assets used by the guild for its onchain activities, along with the rewards they earn through playing games or completing tasks. Earnings are distributed evenly among guild members permissionlessly and trustlessly through a smart contract.
• Activities
  Guilds can earn SBTs by participating in YGG’s questing platforms, simultaneously building their web3 reputation and treasury. For example, guilds that complete any of the quests in the Global Guilds questline from Season 7 of the Guild Advancement Program (GAP) will receive shared recognition for their performance in the season’s roster of games.

Together, the elements of an Onchain Guild create a virtuous cycle for its members. Guilds are made up of people interested in earning rewards or assets. The value of an asset stems from how it is utilized in onchain activities. These activities then form the basis of an individual or guild’s web3 reputation.

The YGG Guild Protocol equips guilds to grow and become self-sustaining. One of the first guilds to form within YGG, Axie University (AxU), was established during the peak of Axie Infinity’s popularity, starting as a small group led by AxU founder Spraky and his friends. YGG supported AxU as they recruited more members and expanded into other web3 games, providing access to assets such as Pixels land that they could maximize and reap rewards from. As a Guild Protocol, YGG is now able to extend its resources to even more groups like AxU that establish themselves as Onchain Guilds.

Finding the Best Guild for the Job

With web3 reputation, YGG-partnered projects can target specific groups and design tailored campaigns through YGG’s questing programs to attract dedicated users and cultivate high-LTV communities. These include:

• Social groups such as friend groups, competitive players, content creators, educators, and more.
• Career groups such as AI data labelers, designers and artists, game testers, asset creators, and more.
• Geographical groups, like in-person event attendees, schools and universities, companies, regional guilds, and more.

In practice, this could help new web3 games quickly build their player communities by targeting Onchain Guilds comprised of skilled, dedicated players. For example, a new web3 trading card game (TCG) could engage guilds that meet the following criteria:

• Has at least 50 guild members
• Has earned achievement badges from TCGs previously featured in GAP
• Has a treasury valued at a minimum of US$500

The guilds subsequently gain the opportunity to explore a new game specially matched to their interests and combined expertise. This creates possibilities for those guilds to start earning token rewards if the members enjoy the game and decide to master it together.

Onchain Guilds are the primitive by which the YGG Guild Protocol enables builders to access web3 communities around aligned interests and activities. As YGG expands beyond gaming through its Future of Work (FoW) initiative and collaborates with projects focused on other nascent technologies, guilds can begin specializing in future-ready skills to contribute to AI training, DePIN and more.

YGG’s transition into a Guild Protocol creates a vast range of opportunities not just for gamers and guilds but everyone in web3. The vision of a truly open web3 ecosystem is now closer to reality than ever before.

Download the YGG Guild Protocol Concept Paper to learn more about the benefits of organizing into an Onchain Guild.

Learn more about Season 7 of the Guild Advancement Program (GAP).

Join the YGG Discord and follow YGG on X for future updates.