From Web2 to Web3 in India — Chingari & GARI Panda NFTs, a Deep Dive!

15 min readApr 4, 2022

In the last couple of years, the crypto space has slowly but surely, started catching the attention of everyone around. Right from 10-year-olds talking about Dogecoin to millionaires and large companies investing in Bitcoin, the amount of mainstream media attention that this space has received is extremely encouraging. Now with all this hype, there are also a lot of projects that have started to gain some steam. One of these is the GARI Panda NFTs project by Chingari, a leading Indian video creation, and video sharing social platform app.

Through the course of this write-up, I’ll try guiding you through the journey of this project and discuss the pros, cons, and possible impact that this can have, not just on the space in general, but also on aspects such as the creator economy, widespread adoption of social tokens, and literacy around Web3. I know there might be a lot of new terms, but stick with me, I’ll try and simplify everything for you!

Background

The Chingari app was launched back in November 2018 by founders Sumit Ghosh, Deepak Salvi, and Biswatma Nayak. It incubated under Globussoft, a software development company founded by Sumit. Chingari initially started off with the goal of crafting a complete social media super-app experience for Indian users from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. With TikTok being banned in India around June 2020, Chingari along with a few other apps like Roposo and Trell started to enter the limelight as replacements for TikTok and the big void it had left in the creator space. This was also the time around which Chingari rebranded & redesigned themselves. There were some extremely positive results- the app crossed 1 million downloads within 15 days of rebranding and continued to show rapid growth. By February 2021, that is, within 6 months of the rebrand, Chingari touched 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store, a mean feat in itself!

Well, everything seems to be going good right? What next, do the founders continue to let Chingari stay as is and mint their money? Do they succumb to the comfort of having established a social media giant and not innovate anymore? I can see a ton of companies settling for something like this and being happy with it. However, Chingari had other ideas! (I’ll make sure I use cool graphics ahead, keep reading!)

The Pivot!

The “other ideas” are what I shall refer to as the “pivot”. I’m referring to the jump that Chingari decided to make, going from a traditional social media Web2 platform to a Decentralised Autonomous Organization (or DAO) in Web3! That’s right, as said on the Superteam podcast, “This is important because it’s probably the biggest Web2 company from India to make the jump to Web3” in an episode with co-founder Sumit Ghosh.

Taken from Tenor

Alright, all I read are buzzwords, but what do you mean? What’s different? How do you know it’s not just another one of those companies getting on the crypto hype train? Let me try and break it down for you.

DAOs and why we should choose Web3

Firstly, let’s touch a little bit on DAOs. The general concept of a DAO is that of an entity that has a certain set of members or shareholders who, perhaps with a 67% majority (or at least 51%, can vary), have the right to spend the entity’s funds and modify its code. The members collectively decide on various decisions such as the direction the organization takes, the utilization of funds, etc, with an equal say or vote. It can be thought of as a democratic organization of sorts, where everyone has equal say, power to vote, and put forward their opinions or proposals.

Maybe you’re starting to see a part of the picture now. Democratic systems are nowhere near perfect, but they might also be the best we’ve got. Now that we understand the concept of a DAO, let’s briefly touch upon some key points that talk about the advantages of Web3 over Web2. Here are some real-life comparisons that I can think of right over the top of my head-

Web2 companies can take down your content and control your data without needing your permission or a reason for doing so. Not the case in Web3.
A payment gateway in Web2 can decline payments or delay them. Web3 will always have quicker, more frictionless payments.
Crashing of centralized data servers could lead to severe issues all around the world, especially because of the amount and sensitivity of data stored in them. Web3 servers for starters will be a lot more resistant to crashes. They would also be tougher (close to impossible) to hack into thanks to Blockchain technology.

Looking at things in Web2 through a finer lens will make you realize that you don’t really “own” or have control over anything you put out. The same is the case with fiat currencies in the real world that can, overnight, be declared useless or without having any monetary value. It’s happened before, it can happen again!

This is where Web3 comes into the picture. Apart from the obvious decentralization that comes with it, another important feature is that we would “own” everything we put out and have complete control over our data. And honestly, if you ask me, that’s a great way to be :)

Now that we’ve laid out the foundation of what we’re getting into, let’s deep dive into Chingari’s Web3 pivot, their ideas, structure, and direction. I’ll try my best to cover some key ideas, social tokens, the pros & cons of this pivot, and various perspectives on this whole scenario.

The Plan

There’s a lot of information and nuance surrounding Chingari’s jump to Web3, their plan for creators, social tokens, etc. In my opinion, the best way to break it down is by having a look at their whitepaper and taking it ahead from there.

Before we get into the whitepaper, I would like to say that they’ve made some really bold statements here and that their content seems to be backed by some amazing research, leading to some very good points that have been captured and presented in a rather simple manner.

Creator Economy

The whitepaper talks about the booming creator economy, fierce competition, and financialization aspect of it all. It openly states how on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube, the only sources of revenue are ad-based models or affiliate programs through collaborations. It states also that Web2 paradigms are not appreciative of content creators despite them bringing immense value and revenue to various platforms.

“Traditional Web-2.0 content platforms disregard content creators as a vital part of a platform appeal for the users they monetize on, nor do platforms acknowledge their value as collaborators.” ~ GARI whitepaper

As early as July 2020, Chingari had already started making efforts to support its creators via a centralized Chingari coin, an action-based loyalty token system that took up around 30% of Chingari’s revenue. The seeds to move to a community-centric, creator-led economy had hence, already been sowed.

GARI Token — Mechanics and Interactions

Enter, the $GARI Token! The whitepaper mentions social tokens and Chingari’s desire to release its own tokens for creators to better support them and also in order to eventually establish a circular economy, one where everyone thrives and creator opinions are valued and responsible for taking the brand forward.

GARI looked to Solana to provide blockchain integration for these tokens. Sumit Ghosh in his Twitter thread explains why Solana was chosen. The current traffic on the Chingari platform is around 31 million active users per month, a number that is only going to increase over time! With the userbase that Chingari is catering to, it was quintessential that they looked at blockchain options that were not only quick in terms of transactions but also affordable. Apart from these two major points, it always helps to go with a trusted and well-reputed organization in the industry. These factors, along with an “ambitious and very supportive sounding” Solana team (as described by Sumit on the Superteam Podcast) prompted Chingari to choose Solana. For all you number/stat lovers out there, Solana needs only $10 as a reference price for 1 million transactions as opposed to Ethereum which requires $300,000 for the same number of transactions (this is an example and not the actual value). Hence, Solana!

Taken from Sumit’s thread on why Solana was chosen

Now, moving to the utility aspect of these tokens, there are three main ways in which the $GARI token will be utilized:

Staking in governance as a way to vote- $GARI tokens can be staked in the Chingari DAO in exchange for DAO shares. The proposals made on the DAO go through two stages, namely off-chain or in-app and on-chain, that is, they are pushed on the blockchain if a supporters’ threshold is reached.

Staking in governance (taken from the GARI Whitepaper)

Staking in a creator- Personally, this was my favorite use case of the $GARI tokens. It essentially enables you as an audience to put your money on a creator. Think of it as you discovering a creator whose work you really enjoy and think they have the potential to make it big. You can support them in their journey by providing $GARI tokens to them which then become a part of their special creator pool. They can redeem these/exchange them for fiat currency to buy something like a better camera to improve the quality of their content and in the long run, your staked GARI grows as they grow. It’s the same concept as investing, say in a startup. The only difference here is that it’s a creator!

Staking in a creator (taken from the GARI Whitepaper)

To pay directly to someone in exchange for utility/token gated content- This essentially would be similar to subscription/membership models that allow special access to some certain curated content by your favorite creators. Creator NFTs, collectibles, etc would also all be a part of this.

Aside from these mechanics, the tokens also help facilitate watch-2-earn, engage-2-earn, and play-2-earn features in the Chingari app. Currently, $GARI is priced at ~$0.4, and is in 2nd place on the Solana blockchain tokens list in terms of activated wallets.

Gari Wallet Activation stats (taken from a Twitter thread by Sumit Ghosh)

Lastly, here are some details about the tokenomics of the GARI token as presented in their whitepaper.

GARI Tokenomics from the GARI Whitepaper

GARI Wallets

With the advent of the $GARI Token, it is only natural that creators would need a secure place to store their $GARI. As of Februrary 11th, 2022, Chingari started rolling out it’s mainnet wallet in the BETA version of the app for users to try out. Here’s how you can activate your wallet and interact with $GARI tokens-

Once you have the BETA version, go to the app and click on ‘Wallet Tab’ to activate the in-app wallet. Proceed by clicking the ‘Activate’ button.

Wallet Activation, taken from GARI’s article on Medium

Once you’ve activated the wallet, you are prompted to setup a pin for the same post which your wallet will be activated.

Lastly, a KYC application is required to be filled post which you can freely start engaging in transactions using the $GARI token.

The GARI Roadmap

A rather elaborate and well-planned roadmap was put out by Chingari. Since its inception in August of 2021, the $GARI Token has raised multiple rounds of funding (Indian and international), launched global GARI communities, worked with the likes of the crypto space giants like Solana and Quantstamp, completed the Initial DEX Offering (IDO) of $GARI, launched its own Solana based wallet and also carried out Airdrops. The latest step in the roadmap as of writing this article is the release of the GARI Panda NFTs, which had its private and public mints on SolRazr from March 28th — 30th and March 31st onwards respectively.

Post all of this, there are plans to revamp the UI/UX for the GARI Wallet, converge focus to the DAO structure, governance mechanisms, staking, open sourcing, launches in Turkey, Dubai, South-East Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe and USA, all by the end of 2022. Also expect a lot of community interaction in the form of fests and hackathons both on and off the app!

GARI Panda NFTs

Drumrolls… Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, that’s right, NFTs! Firstly, what is an NFT? The simplest way to put it:

NFTs can be thought of as digital goods on a blockchain.

For a more in depth understanding of an NFT, you can check out my article on NFTs or watch this episode on my podcast.

The GARI Pandas are a collection of 9999 NFTs on the Solana blockchain. Owning one of these can give you access to various virtual and real-world utilities. For starters, owners of the GARI Panda NFT will have lifelong access to the Chingari Metaverse, a platform for social interactions, VR experiences, etc. Apart from this, NFT holders would get access to GARI funded play-to-earn games, invites to parties with celebrities who collaborate with Chingari, membership to the Chingari Panda Club, GARI Club, Panda Merch store revenue share, access to premium features on platforms that collaborate with Chingari on Partnership NFTs, ownership of the movie production house on Chingari multiplex, and NFT staking.

Lastly, and what I feel is the most interesting and important use case of these NFTs- Only those who own the Panda NFTs can run ads on the Chingari app. This is a really smart move on Chingari’s part. It’s a rather simple exploitation of the demand-supply scenario really. With the traffic there is on Chingari, it is only natural that several brands would want to place their ads here. Now a lot of these brands are going to have a ton of money to pour into these ads and try their level best to get their hands on these NFTs. This in turn will cause the price of the Panda NFTs to shoot up, thereby benefitting Chingari and the NFT holders.

NFT specifics

Now a little bit about the NFTs themselves. Each Panda NFT has a floor price of 2 $SOL and there are 9999 unique NFT pieces. You can mint these pieces on SolRazr. The presale had 5000 NFTs up for grabs with 2500 pieces saved each for the GARI community and the SolRazr community. The maximum number of NFTs that can be minted is based on certain criteria. The criteria are as follows-

Maximum NFTs for SolRazr community (taken from SolRazr’s website)

Maximum NFTs for GARI community (taken from SolRazr’s website)

Lastly, here were some important dates regarding the sales-

Key dates regarding NFT sales (taken from SolRazr’s website)

KYC is required for minting the NFT pieces as well. There were many whitelist opportunities provided. Right from contests around memes and guessing the GARI NFT mascot to retweeting, following XYZ pages’ tweets on Twitter, changing your pfp and also joining the GARI Discord were some of the ways that you could earn a whitelist spot.

HODLing the Panda NFTs? Let’s talk pros and cons

HODL in Web3 lingo refers to “holding on for dear life”, which essentially means that you choose to hold the NFT for a really long time or even possibly forever. As mentioned earlier, the pros are everything that you get access to via the NFTs. Also being an important member of the DAO, you will have the ability to bring some of your ideas to life and establish a reputation in the community, which obviously augurs well for you in the long run. From a financial standpoint, as long as Chingari and the rest of the community are able to actively grow, the value of the Panda NFTs will grow too! Lastly, with Chingari being available in ~20 languages, NFT holders and even just creators in general will have a great opportunity to interact with various cultures and establish meaningful relationships in the community.

Distribution of users on Chingari in terms of languages

A few concerns I have however, are about the adoption of this Web3 paradigm and whether or not Chingari will be able to successfully migrate creators from Web2 to Web3. Some reasons I think this is going to be tough are as follows-

Illiteracy around Web3- With a vast majority of users still completely unaware of blockchain and why it has potential, it could be a tough task to educate and convince people to make the jump. One good thing here however is that Chingari has already sown the seeds for a decent creator economy paradigm by introducing it’s centralized coin. Add to that, it has also implemented a layer of abstraction to keep the complex structuring of the tech away from the users. It will get a little tricky when they start explaining the DAO structure and governance mechanics, especially because this would be completely new to all of us. Ideally, for the sake of the smooth functioning of the Chingari DAO, NFT holders will have to actively participate in discussions and vote on proposals.
Power in the wrong hands?- This is a much broader problem and is applicable to almost any DAO out there. With this new, decentralized form of operating, there might be a lot of clashes in ideologies, which, technically is great to have as long as there is healthy banter, but can soon turn ugly in some situations as well. Scenarios where members from a single organization try to buy a majority of the NFTs and control the economy are not unheard of or improbable, especially because of the right to advertising on the platform being exclusive only to NFT owners, it could lead to Web3 wars between media giants.
Content quality- In the current revenue distribution model, creators receive a fixed amount of $GARI tokens on uploading content. Chingari will want to ensure that this model is not exploited in a manner wherein creators just start uploading for the sake of collecting $GARI tokens without focusing on the quality of content they put out. This would prove harmful to the reputation of the app, snowballing into a price drop of NFTs, chaos in the DAO, etc.

At the end of the day, despite all the transparency and information that has been put out there by Chingari, only time will tell whether or not this endeavour will be successful and if it was worth buying these NFTs. A lot depends on the community, roadmap execution and efforts of the Chingari team. I would like to believe that they have the potential to make an impact and really kill it!

Before I end this write-up, I would also like to shed some light on GARI’s efforts around engaging with community and doing good for society.

Final thoughts, GARI’s community efforts and more!

Having grown to about 75 million as a community now, Chingari has the power to create some extremely positive impact and contribute to social good. Over the past year, they’ve stepped up to raise COVID relief funds through entertainment in the form of music festivals, contests etc. There’s been active collaborations with celebrities (the most prominent being Bollywood superstar Salman Khan), various Web2 and Web3 companies like SolRazr, Snow Records, Quantstamp, Republic, AWS, Tencent etc. and also numerous meme contests, AMA sessions, sticker contests, NFT ideation contests for the upcoming NFT marketplace with handsome prizes to ensure the community is engrossed. They are extremely active on Twitter, Discord and even Medium, where they roll out weekly updates and future plans. With a strong following of about 235K on Twitter and around 13K on Discord, it clearly shows that people are actively involved and hyped about taking this project to the moon🚀.

Seeing all these efforts and active participation of the community on Twitter, I’m hopeful that Chingari is able to live up to the hype and deliver. Fortunately, I was able to join their Discord and interact with the community firsthand and similar to what I’ve seen on Twitter, there seems to be a net positive response towards the project and it is refreshing to see people making an effort to interact with and grow the community.

A lot to take in but definitely something worth taking note of, GARI has the potential to really uplift Web3 in India at scale and be the one stop shop for creators not just in India but all around the world!

References