White Paper

RLY Protocol Powers the Expanding RLY Network:
RLY Protocol makes it easy for social applications to launch tokenized economies. The RLY Network has built v2 of the RLY Protocol and is now powering a growing ecosystem of tokenized social apps. 

 

The permissionless, no-fee RLY Protocol is managed by the RLY Network Association, a Swiss-based non-profit. Investors include A16Z, Coinbase Ventures, Battery Ventures, Canaan Ventures, Altos Ventures, Kenetic Capital, and other leading funds.

The core of the multi-chain RLY Protocol enables developers to seamlessly launch tokens at scale, and obtain instant price discovery and immediate liquidity. Also, developers can quickly earn RLY Rewards. The RLY Network uses RLY token (ERC-20) and sRLY token (SPL), a fixed supply of 15B; approximately 2.6B tokens are in circulating supply.

Rapid Network Expansion With v1 to v2:
In 2020, v1 of the Protocol was launched and found product-market fit by enabling a social token app on a Forte sidechain to launch hundreds of unique creator coins, with token bonding curves that provide instant pricing and immediate liquidity and provide RLY Rewards to creators called Rally.io.

In August 2021, v2 was announced, the Decentralization of RLY Network, enabling any app to use RLY Protocol on multi-chains. In addition to US-based Rally.io (creator economies), several new projects were born, including Unite.io (creator economies for Asia) and RLY Ecosystem DAO to fund early-stage web3 dApps. Also, Superlayer Venture Studio launched birthing Taki (tokenized social network), Hotline (tokenized creator communications), Gambit (tokenized sports-themed daily fantasy), and several other dApps.

Four Network Effects Have Emerged:
In v2, the RLY Network has fostered four network effects, including 1) nested bonding curves, 2) a growing open-source developer library, 3) a RLY Rewards demand loop that developers can use for continued growth, and 4) a multi-sided marketplace of developers, creators, influencers, community, and retail investors. 

 

RLY Network is focused on the global social app market, which is forecasted to reach $833B in 2026 at a CAGR of 39%; with future expansion in gaming, media and entertainment, metaverse experiences, and other consumer applications. 

Source: Social Media Global Market Report 2022, Business Research Company, 2022

INDUSTRY CHALLENGES:

Traditional Web2 apps have misaligned incentives: the business models interrupt users, have misused user data, and financial rewards are often one-sided, causing friction between the app developer and their community.

 

Launching a Web3 token economy has three major challenges: the skills are limited to a few, technological development is costly, and achieving a critical mass of a new token economy is challenging for a new token. 

OUR SOLUTIONS:

RLY Protocol makes it easy for social applications to launch tokenized economies, in which they can elect to distribute ownership and financial rewards to their users via social token minting, liquidity, and rewards. This enables web2 and web3 social developers to align economic incentives with their users instead of only with their shareholders. 

 

RLY Protocol solves these challenges by: making it easy to build new web3 social applications where users can create their own social tokens, simplifying the economic complexity of managing multitudes of tokens, and providing immediate liquidity using our token bonding curves, and relationships with multiple exchanges.

OUR FUTURE VISION:

We believe in a future internet where the community can govern, build, and share in the financial rewards of the internet they are helping to build. We believe that economic incentives should be aligned between app creators and their communities for sustainable business models.

 

VALUES:

1. Aligned Incentives are the ethos of token economies.
2. Decentralization is efficiency and trust among a network.
3. Ownership of tokens by developers and community.
4. Easy-to-use tools are the core of the Protocol.
5. Reward those who contribute value. 
6. Together the ecosystem creates outsized network effects.

RLY Protocol is launching v2 with multi-chain support for Ethereum and Solana, after our v1 protocol with Forte sidechain that enabled Rally.io. Here’s our growth to date:

Using RLY and the RLY Protocol, US-focused Rally.io launched in 2020 using Forte on an Ethereum sidechain. Rally.io offers social tokens for creators and their community using no-code blockchain technologies for mainstream creators and their fans, as well as credit card onramps and bridge-out capabilities to ERC-20 wallets.

Creators and their communities benefit from holding creator coins to receive RLY Network Rewards in the form of RLY in a custodial wallet, or redeeming the creator coins for products, services, or experiences, or liquidating the social token by swapping with RLY, an ERC-20 token.

This v1 demonstrated the capabilities of the RLY Protocol to support an application to easily launch token economies with a large number of tokens. In August 2021, Decentralization Project birthed v2 of the RLY Protocol to a multi-chain and global RLY Network.

The announced projects that all utilize the RLY Protocol and/or tokens include Unite.io (creator economies for Asia) and RLY Ecosystem DAO to fund early-stage web3 dApps. In 2022, The SuperLayer venture studio is going to market with Taki (tokenized social network), Hotline (tokenized creator communications), Gambit (tokenized fantasy sports), and several other projects.

The RLY Network Association is a Swiss non-profit and is responsible for the permissionless, open source RLY Protocol, the RLY Treasury, and Ecosystem development which includes financial grants.

RLY Network is expanding, by offering the permissionless RLY Protocol and RLY Tokens, enabling developers to easily launch token economies.  

• RLY Protocol: The Permissionless Software Suite for developers to easily launch token economies.
• RLY Network: All apps using the RLY Protocol, and RLY Token.
• RLY Token: The primary coin that powers the network, 15 billion fixed supply ERC-20, canonical representations across all support chains, including Solana.
• RLY Network Association: Non-profit organization that manages the Protocol and community treasury.
• Token Bonding Curve: Mathematical curve that defines the relationship between tokens’ supply and asset price, offering instant pricing. 
• Swap Routing: Efficient trade execution for tokens bonded to RLY via a Token Bonding Curve that are also supported by other on-chain liquidity pools, enabling developers to realize revenues even in micro-economies.  
• RLY Network Rewards: Our economic design to reward positive behavior built on top of the RLY Network by offering up to 1M RLY during bootstrap phase to developers and recurring rewards. 

The RLY Protocol has found product marketing fit, and solves numerous problems categorized by ease of deployment, token pricing, and liquidity, kickstarting network effects and financial value for developers. 

 

Ease of Deployment

The Problem	Protocol Solutions
Writing code takes up valuable development cycles, especially when qualified developers are scarce and expensive.	Leverage our Developer Resources, our growing code libraries, and access an ecosystem of seasoned developers.
Developing a dApp on one Layer1 is a challenge, but the complexity increases when integrating cross-chain.	Our protocol is multi-chain, which offers bridges and canonical wrappers, with one single RLY token and liquidity.

Token Pricing and Liquidity

The Problem	Protocol Solutions
Fiat on/off ramps not available for new tokens.	RLY tokens are available for trade and purchase across multiple CEX and DEX; using RLY as a base token in a Bonding Curve extends its benefits to bonded tokens.
Establishing credible value/price in new tokens is challenging.	Token Bonding Curves offer instant market-based price discovery and liquidity.
Fiat on/off ramps unavailable for new tokens.	RLY tokens are available for trade and purchase across multiple CEX and DEX; using RLY as a base token in a Bonding Curve extends its benefits to bonded tokens.
A lack of liquidity pools for small economies means tokens are challenging to sell, slowing growth.	Bonded tokens can be liquidated by instantly swapping with base tokens or other tokens in the RLY Network.

Kickstarting Network Effects

 

The Problem	Protocol Solutions
Multi-token applications fragment liquidity, reducing usability and network effects.	Nested Bonding Curves allow base tokens to aggregate demand and liquidity across all bonded tokens.
Limited utility and composability for social tokens.	RLY Network curates reputable applications with meaningful utility for social tokens.
Token economic design is complex.	RLY Network aggregates and highlights design patterns and effective launch strategies across ecosystem projects.
The holy grail of network effects is not well documented for token economies.	RLY Network has a growing and updated library of Developer Resources to apply what others have successfully done.
Cold-start issues challenge apps that need a multi-sided marketplace to get critical mass.	RLY Network has a growing set of users with wallets that own RLY, sRLY, social tokens, or NFTs.
Cross-side network effects, and/or multi-sided marketplaces are challenging to get going.	RLY Network has an ecosystem of developers, influencers/creators, and community who all attract each other.

 

Financial Value for Developers

The Problem	Protocol Solutions
Coldstart: accruing value in a token economy delays revenue recognition.	The RLY Rewards emissions offer a revenue stream for value creation.
Developers are often cash strapped but need operating funds.	Developers could instantly liquidate their tokens on the open market.
Developers don’t want to give up equity to investors.	Apply for a financial grant from RLY Network Association, the DAO, or other RLY projects.

RLY Protocol Applied in the Current Market:  

• Rally.io launched hundreds of social tokens for creators. Rally.io has launched over 300 uniquely branded creator coins, each with instant pricing and immediate liquidity to $RLY on the Forte sidechain using three token Bonding Curves. The application expanded capabilities on top of the RLY Protocol, including NFT capabilities and unique campaigns for coin redemption and creator coin-to-creator coin swap capability. Creators earn Rally Rewards for token growth. 
• Unite caters to Asian creator economy with social tokens. Unite is using RLY Protocol in a similar manner as Rally.io for the Asian market and has launched dozens of unique branded social tokens, using the Protocol’s Token Bonding Curves, for instant pricing and immediate liquidity to RLY. Creators earn Rally Rewards for token growth. 
• Taki paves new ground, a social network where users are rewarded. Taki, a social network for the global market rewards creators and users with Taki tokens and UserCoin tokens, all bonded to sRLY on Solana. This micro-blogging social network rewards users’ interaction and also enables users to award tokens to other users via Gold Takis which are distributed to both the user and the user coin holders, demonstrating how an app can build a multi-directional token economy. The developer and community members earn tokens for engagement. 
• Gambit offers tokenized fantasy sports for fans. Gambit is a crypto-powered play-and-earn fantasy sports game where players buy and sell athlete tokens, build a championship team, and compete in daily contests to earn RLY Rewards using RLY Protocol on Solana. Players can earn winnings from fantasy sports drafts and use those winnings to purchase more tokens and play again.
• Gary Club is a network of nested tokens for a coaching network. Gary Club uses a nested token economy to establish an ecosystem of business coaches. Gary Club, started on Rally.io with a single coin, has migrated to Solana, and is expanding by adding sub-tokens for a network of business coaches. This network of creators will use nested TBCs, and generate rewards across the ecosystem as they grow their economy. 
• Hotline offers a token messaging platform with sub-tokens. Hotline offers a $Hotline coin and branded subtokens for individual creators which enables payments between creators and communities. Fans can subscribe to content from their favorite creators or chat directly with them, as well as stake their Creator Coins for the opportunity to earn RLY Rewards.
• Z-Gallerie eCommerce brand uses tokens in a loyalty program. This home furnishing retailer launched a no-code creator coin from Rally.io to reward ecommerce customers with tokens, replacing traditional loyalty points. Customers who hold a certain number of $ZGLD tokens can receive access to perks, or redeem tokens for special services or discounts. Coin holders benefit from RLY Rewards during token growth. 

 

Future Use Cases for Consumer Apps Landscape:
RLY Protocol has demonstrated product-market fit for social and SoFi apps, but also can extend to other consumer app sectors including: gaming, media & entertainment, loyalty programs for brands, NFT communities, metaverse apps. and beyond.