Gate.io Blog Gate.io AMA with Republik-A Revolution to Bring Ownership and Voting Rights to the Community You Create

Gate.io AMA with Republik-A Revolution to Bring Ownership and Voting Rights to the Community You Create

01 January 08:00

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![](https://gimg2.gateimg.com/image/article/17035014241.jpeg)
**<font size=4>Time: Dec 21st, 2023 at 11:00 AM UTC
[Gate.io](https://www.gate.io "Gate.io") hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with Richmond Teo,Lead Advisor of Republik in the [Twitter Space](https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1lDxLPEEBWLxm "Twitter Space").
Official Website: https://republik.gg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RepubliK_GG
Follow Republik on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RepubliK_GG "Twitter") and [Telegram](https://t.me/officialrepublik "Telegram")
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![](https://gimg2.gateimg.com/image/article/17035018612.jpeg)
**Richmond Teo — Lead Advisor of Republik**
## Q&A from Gate.io
### Q1: Could you introduce RepubliK as a platform? What's the company's story?
**Richmond**: RepubliK started in early 2022 with a small team trying to create meaningful social experiences that can rival Instagram and TikTok. RepubliK is a revolution to return the power of social media back to the creators and users who made it possible. Imagine a world where everything we collectively create and share is owned and managed by the very community that made it possible.

Back then we looked at a couple of forces driving what we see is the big world of change. One of it is how Web3 brings about this massive force that enables people to directly connect, directly reach out to, directly transact with their audiences, their fan base, or pretty much anyone. It enables people to create meaningful items that could have value and these things can represent many different things in many different cases.

We saw this ability and growth of the creators and the creator industry and how they could potentially harness the power of web3 to basically enrich themselves, find other ways of revenue sources at the same time that the creative industry was growing dramatically, and we think that creators will represent the mass majority of advertising marketing budgets for years into the future.

As we look into the large industries and large tech companies today, we wanted to think about what should be centralized versus what should be decentralized. While running through that scope, it seemed obvious that companies like Google and Apple should remain centralized organizations, they do very well that way. However, if you look at social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and all of the mainstream ones, you'll find that they don't really offer that much in the way of technology that is prohibitively difficult for them to disrupt.

So I see Web3 bringing about decentralization that can affect traditional industries for the first time in 10 years in crypto. I've been in crypto since 2011 when I started my first crypto company and I've been waiting for this moment where regular people would get into crypto and it would be fast, it would be safe, it would be efficient and people would actually be able to do more, interact more, and earn more. Basically, we put these pieces together and we realized that the creator industry is very ripe for disruption because decentralization will likely occur on platforms where most creators earn today.

We created something called a COTO round (Creator Only Token Offering) in early 2022 and we got creators to come in. They told us what their pain points were, what the issues were, and to be honest, most of the things boil down to the same couple of issues. The first one being Facebook, TikTok makes all the ad revenue, makes everything. Creators don't get a single cent, even though they bring so many, so many eyeballs, and so many, so many views. And then they wanted longevity. They wanted passive income. So if I'm posting, I'm doing stuff. I want to have income for that.

They didn't want every single thing they made to be, "Hey you know, I have so many followers. Can I get this deal with this brand? Do I post this? How much do I get paid per post?" They wanted to add passive income on top of that, and a lot of other issues. So we worked with them to design RepubliK and what we have today is kind of a TikTok/Instagram-type platform. The key difference really is that people who are active on the platform and who generate a lot of value for the platform are distributed with RPK Tokens and the amount of RPK Tokens they get depends on how much they've contributed.

So contribution comes in terms of posting great content, referring users that have become active on RepubliK and things that we deem to bring value to us to distribute RPK Tokens and fills the criteria of RPK Tokens. Basically the idea is to redistribute RPK to give income back and to help creators along their journey, help them do a lot of things much better such as monetize better and use web3 tools better.

We'll have a series of monetization methods that Web2 creators are used to and that Web3 creators would obviously find simple, like tipping to unlock chats with somebody, you can also tip to subscribe, pay to subscribe or pay for exclusive content. The Tipping Feature is now available on the RepubliK platform, where there are thousands and thousands of people tipping each other small amounts of RPK daily and we're generating fees for that so that has been immensely popular. We're going to roll out the additional functionalities and soon people can start depositing and withdrawing from the platform.

This means that on RepubliK, web3 users can basically do things that web3 people like, and Web2 users can use it the way they like to use it too. So that's the essence of where we're at. The RPK Token is listed on Gate and five other Exchanges so we're very happy to have our Token being floated and freely available for our creators and our community to use. We've also announced in October 2023 that we raised $6M at a $75M valuation from really, really good crypto investors, including the venture arms of top exchanges and many others.

Since our $6M seed raise announcement at $75M valuation in October from investors such as OKX Ventures, HTX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Enjin and more, we've rapidly grown to over 1.5 million registered users, more than 700K monthly active users and exceeding 280K daily active users (DAUs). RepubliK’s beta launch was in March 2023 and we moved out of stealth mode in September 2023.

### Q2: What problems did you see in today's social media space and how does RepubliK step in to solve it?
**Richmond**: Although legacy social platforms offer powerful channels for garnering attention, the options for pathways toward profitable interactions are slim. The majority of creator revenue stems from external brand deals, while on-platform monetization functions remain fragmented and siloed. Platform take rates remain high, and ad revenues have seen a steady decline. In addition, there is a lack of consistency with respect to content policies and guidelines, which change frequently, resulting in a challenging and uncertain environment for creators.

Traditional social media platforms generate revenue primarily from user content but often fail to share this wealth with the content creators themselves, much less the users who have supported these creators. RepubliK disrupts this model by decentralising value distribution in order to redistribute value back to its users and creators in the form of RPK Tokens, ensuring that those who contribute to the platform's growth are fairly compensated. This is conducted through a gamified XP-system that rewards various forms of engagements, including good content creation, likes, referrals from sharing content, referrals into the platform and daily login streaks. RPK Tokens are then perpetually distributed to the in-app wallets of active users based on the percentage of XP they have on the platform.

As a utility of the native RPK Token, RepubliK is continuously building monetization tools that creators and users of traditional social platforms are familiar with and can benefit easily from, including tipping and gated chat functions. Creators who monetise on the RepubliK platform experience significantly reduced incremental costs associated with administrative tasks, legal fees, or talent agents. As a result, creators can capture larger value that was previously difficult to obtain within traditional systems, which were burdened with inefficiencies and costs.

Unlike traditional platforms where decision-making is centralised, RepubliK’s RPK Token also empowers its users with governance rights. This means that users who hold RPK Tokens have a say in voting on platform decisions from new features, partnerships, content and how the community is run, in turn fostering a sense of community ownership and democratic participation, which is often lacking in conventional social media.

RepubliK also leverages on A.I. for the sole purpose of talent discovery, providing aspiring creators a low barrier of entry to connect and build communities of their own niches without the need to be well-versed in the constantly changing algorithms of legacy platforms that prioritise brands, advertising mechanisms and the top percentiles of KOLs. This means creators now have the choice to create content representative of themselves without ever having to “sell-out.” The A.I. Recommendation Engine customises each individual’s feed to reflect content that they like based on their interactions on the platform and is constantly learning.

### Q3: And what are RepubliK's edges over other socialfis that are also working on solving the social media value distribution problem?
**Richmond**: RepubliK is very unique in the SocialFi space - We have very different goals and our product stands out from most socialfi projects. Most socialfi projects either create and trade NFTs and creator tokens or put aspects of social media like social graphs and posts on the blockchain, however RepubliK is not focused on either.

Instead of how most platforms or projects are split into equity + governance + utility + currency + NFT + land, etc,we choose to include all functions in the RPK Token. Lets just have ONE Token that encompasses the entire community's value, which is the fairest way - An economy that exists within a social media platform. We're also focused on rewarding our users in a perpetual and sustainable way - by generating RPK utility and governance on the platform with our issuance of continuous Community RPK Rewards.

With regards to NFTs, if creators want to create a Token and market them, our unique viewpoint is that we believe Creator Tokens should be linked to something. In our case, we <a href="/price/link-ln" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">LINK</a> them to values created by the creator on the platform, and because of that linkage there, we will have RPK Tokens locked up in the vault everytime a creator issues Tokens. The other big problem we saw with this sector was that people basically minted an infinite number of NFTs. There should be a scarcity value to NFTs which didn't exist. For entities to mint on the RepubliK platform, you'll be required to lock a certain amount of RPK Tokens in a vault with the NFT, so when creators start minting tokens, it would cost them something and therefore they wouldn't just mint unlimited amounts and see what people will buy. RepubliK's future Creator Tokens or NFTs will be backed with RPK to prevent over supply, and most importantly, value transfer, usage and core functions are not dependent on token price inflations.

RepubliK is also aware of the challenges Web 2.0 users face when entering the SocialFi / crypto space, and to bridge this gap effectively, our approach is two-pronged, focusing on both simplicity and security. The platform is designed to create familiarity with mainstream social media app features and functions. The platform encourages video and photo content which is most similar to TikTok and Instagram and we're always developing multiple ways for users to earn and use RPK Tokens. The form and function of the platform itself has the ability to attract web2 users, which has skyrocketed our user growth much larger than other socialfi projects.

Users are also not required to connect Web 3.0 wallets to engage with RepubliK. To facilitate transactions, we've adopted a system similar to centralized exchanges where users can easily deposit and withdraw funds by providing their addresses, similar to how they would interact with a traditional online platform. This will eliminate the complexities associated with decentralized transactions. Understanding that many Web 2.0 users may not own ETH, RepubliK has enabled gas fees to be paid in RPK. This will simplify transactions and make them more accessible to a broader user base.

While many SocialFi platforms focus primarily on tokenization, RepubliK offers a broader range of monetization tools familiar to Web2 content creators, such as sub_script_ions and exclusive content access. This enables creators to diversify their revenue streams, build more sustainable careers and seamlessly introduce their Web2 communities or fanbases to participate in the tokenomics of the platform. As I shared, we surveyed many creators and not many of them actually care as much about social graphs or their posts and all that being verified. It's not that they don't care completely, but it's really not a pressing issue. So there has never been a request for RepubliK to consider that they would actually want to port their social graphs between different platforms. Creators have different types of audiences on different platforms. What we really believe in is that in the future, social media users will actually be more willing to pay for interactions than pay just to support. Thus we're developing multiple ways for creators to monetize, but they have to do one thing, which is interact with users too. What we saw lacking is that there's not really a two way interaction. Anyone can buy your token or whatever you want to call it but it doesn't mean that that person would definitely talk to you and interact with you in return. We've seen iterations of creator tokens all the way back to 2017 and we decided that the best way is to have creators prove that they can generate income on the platform and that their creator tokens would be valuable if tied to their earnings. Most importantly that people were happy at the fact that for example if they paid to chat with you, you should chat with them too.  And you know, and you know, did they pay to subscribe to you.

### Q4: RepubliK is known for its unique tokenomics, could you tell us more about it?
**Richmond**: The first thing that is unique is that we really think about rewarding the community consistently, over time, and we wanted to do it in a way that is sustainable. So I think the one of the underpinning words that I would use to describe how RepubliK thinks about our tokenomics is "is it sustainable? Can we do this forever?" Compared to any other project at least that I've seen, we've committed the largest percentage of tokens for airdrops to the community and throughout the longest time. Perpetually.

Unlike the typical one-time airdrop model prevalent in many web3 projects, RepubliK's approach to token distribution is designed for long-term sustainability and continuous user engagement  - by generating RPK utility and governance on the platform with our issuance of continuous Community RPK Rewards. We had to change the word from "airdrop" to calling them "continuous community rewards" becausewhen Web3 thinks airdrops, they think one big airdrop before launching and to get the community hyped up or to get a Token into the hands of many people. However, RepubliK actually knows who are the people we want to give it to. They are the people who have contributed to us.

The RPK Community Reward amount each user receives represents the percentage of XP you have on RepubliK. Anyone can earn XP by engaging with the platform such as posting good content, liking content, referrals from sharing content, referrals into the platform and achieving daily login streaks. RPK Tokens are then perpetually distributed to the in-app wallets of active users. This is not only more equitable but also encourages consistent participation and contribution from our community members. By continuously redistributing RPK tokens back into the community, everyone benefits from the platform's growth and success. This perpetual rewards model stands in huge contrast to the usual one-time airdrop strategies, often leading to short-term speculation and do not necessarily encourage long-term platform engagement.

$RPK Community Rewards are small and designed to be daily and continuous so real and active users will accumulate RPK throughout the lifetime of the platform. As our platform develops an increasing amount of utility and governance functions, our community will in turn grow, which means the value of $RPK that each user is receiving continuously and holding will also rise. So as long as a user is active, has earned XP on the platform, (which is how we determine your contributions) and has done a liveliness test to unlock your Vault (in-app wallet), you are eligible to start receiving rewards. If you're newer, you'll get less which is fair, but as you become more active and you gain more and more XP on the platform, you'll get more and more RPK Tokens.

So how do we make this sustainable? All fees collected on the platform will go towards redistribution. We combine the utility, governance, NFTs, marketplace value, everything that has value in the ecosystem into one, which is the RPK Token. Fees from people, people using in-app monetization functions, fees from people trading creator tokens and NFTs on the platform which we'll be launching next year, are all given back to the people who made social media popular.

### Q5: For those who are referring to their friends and communities who do not know anything about Web3, how will RepubliK bridge the gap between Web3 tech for Web2 creators and users?
**Richmond**: On the side of platform features,
We've heard feedback from our community that they want to onboard their Web2 creators, friends, communities and families but are concerned that the socialfi industry has not been the most web2-friendly. We're aware of the challenges Web 2 users face when entering the SocialFi / crypto space, and have designed the platform to support our community and help bridge this gap effectively. Our approach is two-pronged, focusing on both simplicity and security.

First off, the platform is designed to create familiarity with mainstream social media apps through its interacting functions such as posting, signing up, commenting, liking and sharing etc, which is very user-friendly for all users. Users are also not required to connect Web 3.0 wallets to engage with RepubliK. To facilitate transactions, we've adopted a system similar to centralized exchanges where users can easily deposit and withdraw funds by providing their addresses, similar to how they would interact with a traditional online platform. This will eliminate the complexities associated with decentralized transactions.

We made kickstarting a user's interaction to earn a journey at RepubliK really simple.After signing up for RepubliK, you can quickly gain XP and RPK very easily. The two key ways are to 1) post interesting and engaging content, 2) referring new users to the App. We have a very unique referral system where sharing any content from the App regardless of whether it's yours or not will automatically count whoever clicks and signs up through that link as your referral. There's also a host of daily tasks around engagement and interactions, but to really kickstart, we encourage you to apply to be an ambassador or moderator for the RepubliK App, which will maximise the exposure of your content.

On the side of integrations,
RepubliK will also be partnering with Fireblocks to ensure that user funds are managed safely and securely to provide confidence among users unfamiliar with crypto security; and we have partnered with Mantle (layer 2) for rapid and low cost but secure transactions. Understanding that many Web 2.0 users may not own ETH, RepubliK has enabled gas fees to be paid in RPK. This will simplify transactions and make them more accessible to a broader user base.

Our latest partnership is with The Open Network (TON) which was announced on Dec 19. This integration set for Q2 2024 will revolutionize RepubliK's user experiences by providing a seamless and efficient platform for token transactions with $RPK supported on TON wallet, addressing the issues most web2 users face. We have a shared mission to onboard the next 500 million users onto Web3 and this integration was designed to ensure widespread adoption through ease of use, security, lightning-fast low-cost transfers and open up access to RepubliK’s platform for millions of new users.

### Q6: Can you share more about the future plans for RepubliK to maintain token value?
**Richmond**: In terms of maintaining token value, we actually think about it as us being in extremely early days. So we don't think about maintaining token value right now, we think about growing it exponentially. It takes a while for people to understand the differences between us and most other tokens and what the RPK Token represents when we say the entire value of the community. This is beacause there's no other value bucket other than this token so it takes time for them to actually see fees generated going back to the community. It also takes time for them to see RPK being burnt or token buyback and experiences like these.

In terms of what we plan to build, I think the platform is again, it is relatively early days. I think we've accomplished quite a bit for how young we are as a token and as a platform as well, and soon people will be able to deposit and withdraw.

We do not have web3 connected wallets because big pain point for a lot of web2 users. So we decided to go with a different model which will be opening up shortly where we would very securely send transactions to people and this will essentially function almost like a CEX where people can deposit and withdraw and we can keep it efficient and cheap for them.

We expect that a lot of people will want to withdraw and also a lot of deposits. Therefore, there are a couple of incentives for depositing RPK Tokens. One obviously is that you will be able to stake it on the RepubliK platform and earn a good amount of yield. On top of high yield for staking, we're going to add governance, add status and add visibility as rewards. So by having RPK Tokens in your account on the platform, you are able to earn, have a bigger say in the governance of the platform and be able to reach different status tiers with XP multipliers which almost guarantees that you earn more XP in the future.

As for the reward of visibility, it can be visible for your content and also visibilities for your profile  where you are more easily discovered and are more prestigious. As more creators join us and more people want to interact with them, people are incentivized to hold RPK tokens on RepubliK because they will get all these benefits from within the platform. We also develop utility for your usual functions like DMs and chats so that they can be sorted by status tiers and by RPK and wallets so you will float up in your favorite creators DM list significantly more than others.

We will launch staking very soon with a very generous yield for the first batch of people. So that's something to look forward to in having your RPK tokens in the platform.

Right now there's only 200M RPK minted. More and more tokens will get sucked into the platform and more of them gets locked up as fees generated, more of them gets locked up into staking, more for status, and more will also get locked up in the future because it is required to create creator tokens and mint NFTs. Of course, a larger and larger percentage of creators who issue creator tokens will have their RPK payments locked up in smart contracts as well. So we envision that as we open up the platform with more utility and governance features, this will basically suck up a lot of the RPK tokens that are not in the platform.

Right now we plan to have deposits and withdrawals up relatively soon so people can get these benefits. So I think that it will basically bring in the value, suck in more and more RPK tokens, reduce the supply of it from the market, and we expect that rate of supply reduction to always exceed new RPK tokens being minted and distributed to the community. We'll keep that balance to ensure that not only are people getting RPK tokens, but they're getting more and more value. We want to ensure that that is always in the upward trajectory for our community.

### Q7: Is RepubliK for everyone and have those that just heard of RepubliK already missed this train?
**Richmond**: RepubliK is for everyone, but not everyone is for RepubliK. There are in fact people that we'd strongly advise not to use the RepubliK platform - bot farmers and airdrop hunters who are looking for a quick pay day. This is mainly because of our tokenomics being daily and continuously given to active and genuine users, and our anti-bot crackdowns. Now that being said, it is never too late for these 2 types:

**Creators**
People with a passion seeking new, alternative ways to earn from their content. It could be memes, crypto, dance, fashion, food, education - the sky's the limit here. They may have an existing following on other platforms but are looking for a more sustainable model where their value won't decrease as their audience changes interests, or may even be people reading this who have decided 2 seconds ago that they want to build a community of their own and earn passive income over time. They may also be creators who are thankful to their community and would like to provide incentives or rewards for their fans or believe in fostering a real bond and closer interactions with them.

**Social Media Users**
People who are already interacting and scrolling on social media (who isn't?) who believe it's high time that everyone be rewarded for making these social media platforms and creators popular in the first place. Users that are looking for a more engaging and interactive media consumption experience, where they can support the content and creators they love and connect with others freely.

I've only mentioned our roadmap up until year end where there'll be staking, deposits, and withdrawals. Next year, there will be so much more other functionality that will be added. Right now our user growth rates are pretty exponential and our in-app fees and transactions are also growing exponentially. So I think in terms of owning the RepubliK token it is extremely, extremely early days and definitely very far from missing the train in terms of gaining XP and gaining value as a part of the RepubliK platform.

People who have gotten a lot of XP have either posted very good content, or have been able to refer a lot of users. Even if you're good at neither, you will always be getting more and more RPK as long as you use the platform and you are active on the platform. I'm very much looking forward to the dynamics that we talked about the last few questions coming into play and have all that value truly be reflected in the RPK Token.

<div class="blog-details-info">
<div>Author:** Rio Fu.**, Gate.io Community
<div class="info-tips">\*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
<div>\*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.
</div>

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