NEAR Foundation's investment marks a significant milestone! Uncover this and more in this recap, which details our growth journey of this past month.
Table of contents
An exciting new era
In February, a strategic pivot had us say goodbye to the $CRWNY trading pair on AscendEX. Driven by the rapid growth of Jupiter, Raydium Protocol and other DEXs and because our platform now integrates well within web3 infrastructures, it was time to focus more on our on-chain activities. The vast majority of $CRWNY holders have completed their migration. With the conclusion of the withdrawal window on March 17th, we turn the page on an old chapter into an exciting new era. Onwards and upwards!
Missed the deadline? Check out the above announcements for instructions.
Still having trouble? Make sure to reach out to [email protected]!
Showcasing our platform
As we gear up for the grand unveiling of our platform on Apple App Store, Google Play, and Shopify, the growing anticipation is very noticeable. Quincy Dagelet, our CEO, isn't just leading the charge; he's giving us a firsthand look into the future. Through a captivating video, he introduces the smooth onboarding journey new users of the Crowny App can expect. Stay tuned, because we're just getting started on peeling back the curtain to reveal the magic behind our platform.
Another interesting event occurred when Starbucks announced the shutdown of their NFT program, which was still in beta. Many took to X to share thoughts on this significant step in the web3 journey of the globally recognized coffee company. Customer loyalty experts in the web3 industry were not surprised by this outcome. One of Solana’s key figures, Raj Gokal, shared his take, explaining that Starbucks almost chose to run its loyalty program on Solana, but eventually decided to use Polygon instead. In our opinion, leveraging Solana’s performance-driven blockchain would have been a decisive decision, as we explained in our article on why revolutionizing customer loyalty is only possible on Solana.
🔗
Source: blog article ‘only possible on Solana’
Raj also highlighted that Solana currently runs successful blockchain-based loyalty programs, like the Boba Guys loyalty program which reported an 800% ROI in a recent update. In his post, Raj quotes another post that elaborates on the mistakes Starbucks made in the process. Quincy also shared his take, emphasizing the unique approach Crowny is taking to truly live up to the recognized potential of web3 loyalty as a use case.
$CRWNY Bulls
As the month progressed we saw one of our community members starting an interesting wave; the Crowny Bull! More community members followed, and we decided to participate as well.
As the Crowny Bulls took over X, the $CRWNY token rose by +69% during the month! Coincidence?
We also asked you guys to tell us what brands you would love to see featured in the Crowny App once we release it. To encourage you, our esteemed marketer Eric promised to share some in-app loyalty cards for the suggestions he liked most. In light of the recent ‘bullish’ sentiment, sharing the (purely fictional) Lamborghini and Crowny Bull loyalty cards seemed most fitting!
NEAR invests in Crowny
On the 20th of March we shared BIG news: we are joining the NEAR ecosystem! We did so by announcing an investment by the NEAR Foundation in Crowny. NEAR Protocol is a leading L1 in the crypto industry. Their native $NEAR token boasts a market cap of around 7 Billion USD, which makes them the 23rd biggest cryptocurrency at the moment of writing.
The synergy between Crowny and NEAR is there for a variety of reasons. This leading Layer 1 is known for its focus on AI and commitment to 'chain abstraction’ (making blockchain technology accessible and usable for everyone). This vision aligns well with Crowny’s, which is particularly evident in our approach to onboarding businesses and users into web3 without them needing to understand, or even notice the underlying blockchain technology. Crowny has a multichain approach towards the future and aims to provide the most accessible blockchain-based loyalty platform to businesses and users. The partnership between NEAR and Crowny is a step in the right direction to achieve this!
Our announcement received a ton of love from the ecosystem, and we could not be happier with how this went. Working towards the mainstream adoption of web3 solutions requires us to work together as an industry. At Crowny, we believe our partnership with two leading L1s in the industry is an important step in the right direction to achieve this. That being said, we also received a ton of questions regarding this announcement. Rest assured, a lot will become clear in the next few weeks!
Welcome to NEAR!
So we received a very warm welcome from the NEAR ecosystem, which is reflected in the traction we received on social media! Quincy shared his take on the announcement, emphasizing that we are excited to be building with another and also leading L1 in our industry. Check it out in case you missed it:
One of the main highlights was Ilia’s take on the announcement. Illia Polosukhin is the co-founder of NEAR, and one of the masterminds behind NEAR’s chain abstraction and AI narratives.
“Loyalty economy is the fabric of the future connecting people and brands. Welcome @crownyio to push the frontier as world starts to value it more and more” - Illia Polosukhin on X
It was great to see Ilia's post about Crowny just two hours before he published a picture of him sharing the stage with Jensen Huang, Nvidia's president.
📌
Source: Ilia Polosukhin on X. Jensen Huang (Nvidia) and Illia Polosukhin (NEAR).
Three days later, Quincy met up with some NEAR and Solana friends at BUIDL Asia 2024 in Korea. The event featured speakers Illia Polosukhin (NEAR Protocol), Austin Federa (Solana), and Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum). Events like these are what it means to work together towards mainstream adoption for the entire industry!
📌
Source: Cade Bergmann on X. Quincy in Korea during BUIDL Asia and ETH Seoul.
As Quincy was able to pitch Crowny to loads of people he met in Korea, he sparked a lot of enthusiasm about our potential. Our partnership with NEAR opens up a lot of doors to brainstorm with many different individuals from a ton of companies across the crypto industry. One of which was Meteor Wallet, a leading wallet provider in the NEAR ecosystem!
📌
Source: Quincy on X. Jonathan (Meteor Wallet) and Quincy at the NEAR office.
What’s next?
As we look ahead, the momentum from our activities in March sets the stage for an even more eventful April. The highlight of Quincy's recent trip to Korea, where he attended BUIDL Asia 2024, gave us invaluable insights and connections that are essential as we continue to expand our network and capabilities. The activities in Korea were more than just presenting Crowny but also meant to take in trends, challenges, and opportunities in the vibrant crypto and blockchain ecosystem. This experience has laid a strong foundation for our next venture: TOKEN2049 Dubai.
TOKEN2049 will be an opportunity to share the progress we have been able to make with well-known innovators from the industry. It’s a perfect platform for us to share how Crowny is trailblazing toward a new era of customer engagement and loyalty with our app-powered web3 loyalty platform. That being said, let’s have another look at the projected milestones for the upcoming months:
With the launch of our innovative platform, the sustainable utility of $CRWNY, e-commerce partners like Betterbrand, strategic partnerships like NEAR and more, this year will go down as the most significant one yet in the history of Crowny. In collaborations with Apple App Store, Google Play, and Shopify we’re working towards a well-synchronized app launch to meet the high standards we’ve set for ourselves.
We can not wait to unleash everything we’ve been building in the past years to drive exponential growth and become a true industry leader within the on-chain loyalty ecosystem. Stay up to date with our progress 👇