Pearl: Building Deep Liquidity for Tokenized RWAs
Pearl: Deep Liquidity for Tokenized Real-Wold Assets
Business challenge: Jumpstart a new decentralized exchange and build TVL in a crowded marketplace of similar products.
Marketing challenge: Build awareness, convert awareness into community, users and TVL.
Brand challenge: Establish a differentiated brand experience to build affinity around a new product.
Solution: Build a vibes-based brand and campaign heavy on cultural reference, focused on community and fun.
Results: Peaked TVL at ~$90MM, the second largest exchange on Polygon (DeFi’s 5th largest chain at the time) by TVL, driven by a community-created meme “BRIBES TOO HIGH” that became the anchor to our brand.
Solidly AMMs (DEX) offered 90% of the same features. They worked the same, had overlapping communities, the same protocols seeking liquidity, and at times, even the same teams running them.
Our exchange was differentiated by our focus on tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and the goal to create deep onchain liquidity for this emergent asset class. This was the inspiration for the name: Pearl
However, with so much sameness in the space and liquidity freely moving from chain to chain, we knew that a strong brand was required to effectively tell our story, highlight our differentiation and build a sticky community experience.
We weren’t just focused on swaps and transaction outcomes. We wanted the exchange to feel different, supported by tokenomics, product, content and community.
Pearl’s tokenomics were built in a manner where we could offer up a significant weekly incentive pool, with yield sustainably sourced from tokenized RWAs. We believed that the right incentives with the right brand were all that mattered to launch a successful protocol.
The community agreed, which was the genesis of the community-created “BRIBES TOO HIGH” meme which became an integral component to our communications.
The Pearl brand was designed to be a celebration where incentives and experience come together to make users ecstatic. Pearl was all about the vibes.
The brand was deeply rooted in the rich, cultural touchstones associated with the tropics, sea and beach. We pulled from this library of emotion whenever we needed to make a point. Using a combination of generative images and appropriated cultural ephemera relevant to our brand theme,we served it all back to our community with the singular goal of creating good vibes.
Our goal was to transport users from wherever they were to a place of joy, bringing this experience to as many touch points as possible.
Good vibes on incentives
Good vibes on the product
Good vibes for the community
When it came to content, the strategy was simple: Win with video
Generally, video content in Web3 is limited, primarily reserved for big announcements. It was not being adequately leveraged for regular protocol communications.
Pearl’s goal was to flood the zone with video while acknowledging the disposable nature of digital content. Using familiar content, we executed weekly video a low cost/execution with the belief that “good enough” video was vastly better than no video.
Our video-focused strategy was rewarded with increased reach by the Twitter algorithm, driven in part by lifted engagement rates resulting from the content strategy.
And if community enthusiasm wasn’t obvious through protocol TVL and social metrics, they frequently told us just how pumped they were to be part of the project.
