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Dapp Categorisation: A Use Case Driven Framework #9146

Closed 0xKai27 closed 1 year ago

0xKai27 commented 1 year ago

Description

This issue is meant to drive the conversation around the categorisation of Ethereum dapps. While many dapps do not fit nicely into a single category (due to Web3 composability), having defined categories is a crucial starting point for users wanting to make sense of the possible use cases that can be built on Ethereum.

To this end, the sections below is a proposal of dapp categories based on key concepts in the dapp space. It builds upon the existing dapps page, and proposes language changes as well as new categories so as to clearly delineate between dapp core use cases. Example dapps have been categorised based on their core use case and will be included pending a review against ethereum.org dapp listing policy.

Critically, to arrive at a list that is comprehensive but not overwhelmingly long, community feedback will be much appreciated. If implemented, it is envisioned that these categorical standards will be extended across the relevant dapp pages on ethereum.org. This includes the creation of new pages which provides an overview of the categories (i.e. social, gaming). I will be happy to drive this initiative once the categories have been defined.

For further background:

Related issues:

Excluded categories:

Suggested Dapp Categories

Finance

Decentralised finance dapps that encompasses all non-custodial financial services on the Ethereum chain.

Current Suggested Examples Remarks
Lending and borrowing Loans AAVE, Compound, Oasis, PWN tradFi uses "loans" as a noun describing the action of lending/borrowing
Trading and prediction markets Prediction Markets Polymarket, Augur Remove trading to avoid confusion with token swaps
Payments - Tornado Cash, Sablier No changes
Insurance - Nexus Mutual, Etherisc No changes
Token swaps Exchanges Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, Loopring More specific naming to refer to both AMM and orderbook DEXes
Investments Supply Aggregator/ Investment Funds Token Sets, Index Coop, Yearn, Convex Specific to supply side aggregators which optimise yield through implementing smart contract strategies
Crowdfunding - GItcoin Grants No changes
Portfolios Portfolio Management Zapper, Zerion, Rotki, Krystal Specific to dapps which implement a user friendly UI for users to manage all their DeFi needs
- Demand Aggregator Matcha, 1inch, Kyber Refers to dapps which optimise trade routes for the best rates
- Marketplaces OpenSea, Rarible Refers to platforms which offer listing services to match NFT demand/supply
- Derivatives dYdX, Synthetix Dapps which facilitate the trading of tokens which derive their value from an underlying asset
- Liquid Staking Lido, Ankr Protocols which adds flexibility to cash flows by enabling users to utilise the value locked in staked funds on a Proof-of-Stake blockchain
- Bridges Multichain, Rubic Protocols that enable assets to be securely moved across various independent chains. This can be L1<->L1 or L1 <->L2

Arts and collectibles

Unique digital assets (i.e. NFTs) which have significant cultural value

Current Suggested Examples Remarks
Art and fashion Digital Art Foundation, SuperRare, Async Art, Nifty Gateway Focused on the tokenisation of visual art pieces and their collections
Music - Audius No changes
Digital collectibles Digital Collectibles marble.cards, CryptoPunks Category for exclusive collections of tokenised assets. These collections usually have other functionalities which are built on top of provable ownership
- Shared Experiences POAP Commemorative NFTs which are usually minted to a user based on their participation in a particular event
- Marketplaces OpenSea, Rarible Refers to platforms with product listing pages where users can buy/sell the above

Gaming

Structured virtual environments with clearly defined goals and gamified play-to-earn economic incentives.

Current Suggested Examples Remarks
Virtual Worlds (Move to Metaverse) - More suited to metaverse as this are unstructured worlds with no defined goals
Competition Web3 Games Axie Infinity, Gods Unchaines, Dark Forest The "competition" terminology is less helpful as a category as all Web3 games consist of some form of social comparison (i.e. there is no non-competitive games)
- Yield Guilds Merit Circle, Yield Guild Games Dapps that are able to generate yield through optimising certain aspects of the play-to-earn gaming experience

Metaverse

Virtual worlds where users have the freedom to form personal networks and take ownership of digital assets

Current Suggested Examples Remarks
- Avatars OSUVOX, Spatial A digital identity twin that represents a user in a particular metaverse and is capable of being manipulated by said user
- Virtual Worlds Decentraland, Voxels Virtual worlds where users have the freedom to form personal networks and take ownership of digital assets

Social

Decentralised social networks and related identity technologies where digital identities and social graphs are user owned.

Current Suggested Examples Remarks
- Social Media gm.xyz, CyberConnect Protocols which specialise in the sharing of social media across social graphs
- Creator Economy Mirror, Rally Protocols that focus on the publishing of user created content (articles, videos, etc.)
- Messaging Status, XMTP, Skiff Communication focused protocols that built on top of decentralised identity to enable direct messaging between peers on the network
- Identity ENS, Spruce, Ontology Base identity infrastructure which enables decentralised proof of identity (i.e. you are who you say you are) and the verification of peer-to-peer claims (i.e. who said what about me)

Technology

Generic category to catch all remaining use cases which support or are related to the proper functioning of Web3 dapps.

Current Suggested Examples Remarks
Utilities - Golem, Graph, Arweave Dapps which optimise compute or storage requirements of dapps
Developer Tools - radicle.xyz, API3, push Tools which improves the dapp developer experience
Marketplaces Code Marketplaces Gitcoin Dapps which allow developers to earn crypto for working on open-source software
Browsers - Brave, Opera Web3 native web browsers with in-built walllets/web3 integrations
corwintines commented 1 year ago

Hey @0xKai27!

Really like the suggestions here, and glad to hear you are eager to work on this.

Looking at the your dapp categories, my initial thoughts are

Finance

Lending and borrowing -> Loans - I understand the idea behind this, but I think Lending and borrwing probably speaks to a more global audience a bit easier Trading and prediction markets -> prediction markets - Makes sense Payments - Makes sense Insurance - Makes sense Token swaps -> exchanges - only concern is potential confusion with centralized exchanges. Understand the change here, just noting. Investments -> Supply Aggregator/ Investment Funds - Lean towards investment funds here Crowdfunding - Makes sense. We should add clr.fund here as well just noting Portfolios -> Portfolio management - Makes sense Demand Aggregators - I think most of these dapps would fall under other categories easily, might be unnecessary. Loosly held opinion here. Marketplaces - Might be worth doing NFT marketplaces, but overall agree. I see this below though in Art and collectables suggestion. I think this suits that section a bit more. Derivatives - Probably makes sense, but little out of my depth on this Liquid staking - I think this makes sense. @wackerow curious your thoughts too given staking page content. Bridges - YES!

Arts and collectibles

Art and fashion -> Digital Art - Makes sense to me Music - Makes sense Digital collectibles - so main difference here from Digital Art is use case largely? Shared experiences - Like the idea, I think otterspace and gitpoap fit in here too. I think there probably a better name for this, but I need to think a bit more. Overall yes though. Marketplaces - Agree, but this should only exist here and not Finance I think.

Gaming

I think this space is still a bit new to get categories. My opinion is play to earn is not a genre, but a mechanic, and likely genres are how we want to separate this out in the future. For now I think we can get away with just a gaming section without the categories still. Open to pushback here though.

Meteverse

Curious what this landscape looks like broadly. Still feels like a lot of these would fit under Gaming at the moment.

Social

Social media - makes sense Creator economy - I think this could just be Content personally Messaging - Makes sense Identity - Makes sense

Technology

Agree with all of these, but not sure about the Marketplaces -> Code marketplaces switch is all.

Ill add this to GH grooming as well, but curious what you think of this feedback @0xKai27.

0xKai27 commented 1 year ago

Hey there, no major concerns with the suggestions as it was more of a draft to kickstart the discussion.

Further comments:

Finance

Arts and collectibles

Gaming

Agree with the genre, only callout is that yield guilds externalise the play-to-earn mechanics which might be an important conceptual difference for users (i.e. a gamer who earns through playing the game vs an investor who does not want to game but generate yield). Up for debate whether this nuance is required given the maturity of the space.

Metaverse

The main reason for differentiating is that Metaverse provides unstructured interactions as opposed to games. In other words, games have clearly defined goals and incentives whereas Metaverse provides the user freedom to build their own experiences. This is especially crucial when starting to think about extended reality spaces whereby more of real world businesses are being merged with Metaverse NFT ownership concepts. Could be argued that life is all a game though ;)

corwintines commented 1 year ago

Thanks for all the thought into this @0xKai27. I'm wondering if you are wanting to work on this now :) I think we are more or less ready to start work on this idea, and any changes that might come up can be handled in a PR.

0xKai27 commented 1 year ago

Hey @corwintines, been meaning to get around to this but been caught up with some other things. I'll update in the next few weeks time an update here again when done

corwintines commented 1 year ago

Great sounds good! I will assign this to you for now then @0xKai27 :)

0xKai27 commented 1 year ago

@corwintines created a PR with the new categories and apps. Can use this as a base to tidy up the dapps page.

Specifically, there are a number of dapps which have been added that might require the team's views.

Let me know what are the next steps. Thanks!

github-actions[bot] commented 1 year ago

This issue is stale because it has been open 45 days with no activity.

0xKai27 commented 1 year ago

@corwintines Any updates on this PR? I'm guessing I'll have to add in the new dapps which were added since the PR was created

corwintines commented 1 year ago

Hey @0xKai27,

On my list of things to review this sprint, thanks for checking in. Will update on what may be needed to add, but I can try to catch any of the apps that need to me added to categories.