In-depth Interpretation of Aki Network: Starting with KOL Influence Network, Creating a Data-Driven Unique Web3 Experience

Author: Aki Network

On March 15, Aki Network, a data-driven Web3 project focused on KOL influence marketing, announced the launch of its new website. This website upgrade has significantly enhanced the visual effects of several popular products under Aki Network. The new site has been warmly welcomed by over 120,000 community members and more than 2,400 KOL users. Meanwhile, Aki Network also announced its latest collaboration with zkSync prior to the website launch.

How has Aki Network successfully connected KOLs and other users with Web3 projects? Why has Aki Network developed into a data powerhouse in the Web3 growth stack?

The Information Gap Remains a Common Issue in Today's Web3 World

Having been in the industry for a long time, we rarely look back at ourselves as newcomers to Web3. Back then, we were excited about the contributions we made to each paradigm-shifting project, eager to enjoy the fun of witnessing the promises of cryptocurrency being fulfilled, and delighted to find like-minded companions in the community.

However, the reality of the Web3 journey feels more like an adventure in a dark forest: newcomers often struggle to accurately seize airdrop opportunities while having to sift through various malicious hype; KOLs face reputational risks from rug pulls; project teams may be completely overwhelmed by bots and Sybil attacks… To change all of this, users, KOLs, and project teams must all put in considerable effort to ensure that genuinely valuable information stands out more efficiently in this somewhat chaotic Web3 market.

• Ordinary users may follow popular accounts on Twitter or join hundreds of AMAs but still feel lost: Who should I trust? Which projects are valuable? Where can I find trustworthy voices in Web3?

• KOLs or project teams are always racking their brains to attract real users: Who is the right audience for the project? How can they accurately reach real users? How can they balance ROI and sustainability while enhancing their influence?

In fact, at every stage of the Web3 journey, users are seeking an effective way to obtain valuable and accurate information—this is where Aki Network's unique positioning comes in. Aki Network's goal is quite simple: to bridge the information gap between KOLs, project teams, and all users in Web3.

Aki Network's Solution: A Data-Driven Product Matrix Serving a KOL-Centric Information Network

In Web2 internet marketing, there is a common belief that KOLs are more cost-effective and attractive than traditional digital channels like Facebook and Google Ads. Therefore, KOL promotion has become an alternative to traditional marketing. In Web3, KOLs themselves are also indispensable information centers, capable of matching users and projects more accurately than most marketing channels. Thus, KOLs will continue to be one of the key means to guide the popularization of Web3 applications.

Strategically, Aki Network focuses on connecting and nurturing mid-tier and long-tail KOLs or KOCs. They are often aspiring opinion leaders and are valued by highly vertical, loyal, and engaged fan bases. More importantly, Aki Network is leveraging data as a pathway to realize this strategic vision. Data has become the cornerstone of targeted marketing and AI-driven analytics, and it can even be said to be the only way to achieve this strategic vision.

Aki Network has built a comprehensive set of products and services for more users and KOLs, allowing them to earn corresponding rewards by contributing to high-quality project activities. Its products mainly include:

• Campaign Engine: Cold starts are a major pain point for Web3 projects, but Aki Campaign Engine provides a more efficient and convenient way for project teams to achieve their goals.

1. Aki Network's in-campaign referral tracking feature ensures that projects can measure the marketing performance of each influencer and analyze and attribute based on relevant data.

2. For any Web3 project's long-term and successful marketing, the data generated through Aki Network's KOL network and exclusive referral tracking mechanism is essential.

（Aki Network can widely cover cost-effective mid-tier and long-tail KOLs, supporting excellent campaign scale, ROI, and authenticity.)

StarMap is a user-friendly dashboard. Aki Network quantifies KOLs' Web3 influence into scores using an internally benchmarked algorithmic system. The StarMap platform provides intuitive and meaningful metrics, such as KOLs' engagement levels on social media and their understanding of GameFi.

（Aki Network can source data from both Web3 and Web2 data sources, such as Twitter and Discord.)

• Aki Network has introduced two pages, Aki Profile and Aki InScore, allowing permissionless Web3 individual users to log in, thereby loading as much community data into the StarMap database as possible.

The influx of new users and project exposure brought by StarMap encourages KOLs to be more willing to disclose various information on their Aki Profiles.

（General Web3 users may use Aki Profile as a starting point to find their favorite Web3 voices and ideas through this channel.)

• Aki Badges: Aki Badges are soulbound non-fungible tokens (SBTs). Currently issued on the BNB chain, they define the contributions made by users and KOLs in marketing activities hosted by Aki Network.

1. Aki Network incentivizes users to actively obtain Aki Badges through Aki Reward, typically in the form of cash stablecoins, and will later return benefits to users in a way that aims to allow all participants to benefit from contributing to Aki Network's rapid growth.

2. Similar to the referral tracking mechanism, Aki Badge SBTs will serve as important on-chain data to identify valuable KOLs and genuine users.

（Aki Badges are minted and upgraded quarterly for top contributors and the most loyal users, granting them the right to share in Aki Rewards.)

In summary, whether you are a newcomer just entering the Web3 industry or a KOL or project builder who has already established influence in the Web3 space, Aki Network is ready to provide assistance.

Aki Network's Advantages: Bringing Unique Information and Business Value to All Ecosystem Participants

Aki Network is not just a place to find tasks, nor is it merely a platform for generating and verifying on-chain credentials.

• Finding the Best Projects: Aki Network's dedicated research team carefully selects the highest quality projects for KOLs and users; and provides all users with permissionless event hosting tools.

• Prioritizing User Education: Aki Network selects key information about projects and presents it alongside task lists to help users learn more about the projects they are interacting with.

1. Aki Network's unique StarMap provides KOL influence metrics derived from AI calculations. This offers users a very simple way to find their favorite KOLs and conduct industry research in Web3.

2. Aki Badges ensure that users' hard work is accurately recorded and effectively accumulated, providing opportunities for future incentives (including direct rewards from Aki Network or related incentives from other projects).

• Incubating the Future of Web3: Aki Network enables underrepresented long-tail KOLs to connect directly with real users and quality projects.

• Higher Marketing ROI: The mid-tier and long-tail KOL network created by Aki Network allows project teams to not only gain user contributions during promotional activities but also build familiarity and rapport with KOLs, accumulating highly valuable historical data.

Since its establishment at the end of 2021, Aki Network has conducted 120 events and established partnerships with 2,400 mid-tier and long-tail KOLs, over 114,000 social media followers, and more than 177,000 mature networking connections. Aki Network's ecosystem partners include CyberConnect, Mask Network, Ceramic, and Alchemy Pay, as well as many undisclosed industry leaders and top investors.

Moreover, Aki Network has launched a joint marketing campaign with EthSign, an application supported by Sequoia Capital, attracting over 35,000 real participants in just two weeks, with 78% completing all tasks. Aki Network also helped the leading DeFi protocol SynFutures on the Polygon chain gain over 15,000 Twitter followers in 21 days. In both campaigns, Aki Network's users and KOLs provided support through referral mechanisms, generating 80% additional traffic with a high conversion rate.

At the same time, Aki Network has released a recent roadmap, which includes several exciting technical upgrades and business developments:

• Q1 2023: Multi-chain integration with zkSync and Aptos;

• Q2 2023: Launch of large-scale events targeting the Japanese market, optimization of Aki InScore, and official launch of the micro-influencer incubation program;

• Q3 2023: Introduction of zkSNARK to improve data privacy;

• Q4 2023: Addition of Aki Network's proprietary AIGC tools to support content creation in events and the establishment of the Aki Governance DAO;

• Q1 2024: Equipping the Aki Campaign Engine with machine learning capabilities to better match projects with Aki Network's expanding influencer network.

From Aki Network to Aki Protocol, Leading the Open Data Knowledge Base of the Web3 Growth Stack

It is worth mentioning that the Aki Network team is striving to further embrace the open, permissionless, and autonomous nature of the Web3 world. According to Aki's white paper, Aki Network will gradually evolve into a foundational data layer for building a new practical Web3 code library—namely, Aki Protocol.

Aki Protocol is an open infrastructure and multi-chain knowledge base that provides expression oracle services while rewarding data contributors. Aki Protocol will become the future "Web3 Google"—it will introduce an open API to respond to various project-level query needs, such as "list of fake accounts on Arbitrum" or "top 100 power degen NFT traders on Ethereum."

Essentially, the answers to these query questions are derived from Aki's proof-of-association technology, which clusters and categorizes blockchain addresses, and then participants of Aki Protocol assign meaning and appropriate labels to them. The open API products of Aki Protocol can only be realized through Aki Network, as they require Aki Network to collect and index the ever-expanding data of KOLs and users to broaden their service scope.

It is reported that Aki Protocol will also utilize zk-SNARK technology, allowing the product logic and results of Aki Network to be verifiable on-chain. For example, scores, rankings, and labels on StarMap and Aki Profile. This data will be openly available on the blockchain for everyone to view and verify. Undoubtedly, zero-knowledge proof technology will further help Aki Protocol's open library API protect the native data of Aki Network's data contributors from privacy infringements during the calling process.

In the future, the flywheel between community, events, and data in Aki Protocol will spin rapidly, and by targeting the "KOL promotion" field, Aki Network and Aki Protocol are bound to become powerful data leaders in the Web3 growth stack. More importantly, through a data-driven approach, Aki curates unique Web3 experiences for all stakeholders, a strategic positioning that clearly outshines competitors, allowing it to capture long-term alpha as Web3 expands to welcome its next billion users.