Consensus Hong Kong: Onboarding Millions Starts with Community

At Consensus 2025 Hong Kong, Gabby joined Memeland CEO Ray Chan and CoinDesk’s Jennifer Sanasie on CoinDesk LIVE to discuss the impact of on-the-ground marketing and the role of guilds in onboarding.

YGG’s regional partner in the Philippines, YGG Pilipinas, is set to launch its Metaverse Filipino Worker (MFW) Caravan in April 2025. Over four months, it will visit various provinces across the country to educate Filipinos on alternative career paths in Web3. With this initiative, Filipino guild communities will have a platform to connect, share knowledge and recruit new members at the grassroots level.

The Caravan is part of a larger effort to bring Web3 opportunities to more people, echoing a key discussion at Consensus 2025 Hong Kong, CoinDesk’s first time to host its industry-leading event in Asia. YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon was invited to the CoinDesk news desk with Memeland CEO and co-founder Ray Chan for an interview with CoinDesk Executive Producer and Senior Anchor Jennifer Sanasie.

The interview covered the shift from speculation to community-building in Web3 gaming and the importance of practicing patience to drive real change. They also discussed the importance of organizing IRL events to keep active members engaged while attracting newcomers, with Gabby highlighting the role of guild communities in onboarding and educating people about Web3.

The following is an excerpt from Gabby and Ray’s conversation at the CoinDesk HK news desk, where Jennifer asks the two to share their thoughts about on-the-ground marketing. Ray describes the importance of organizing informal, ad-hoc events like meet-ups. Gabby adds that empowering guild communities with the right tools enables them to independently onboard people into the ecosystem.

Watch the full recording on CoinDesk.

Consensus HK: Web3 Degens Need to Learn “Patience”

Jennifer (5:04): Tell me a little bit more about on-the-ground marketing, because I don't think we see it enough in crypto. Of course, we have this event where we're here IRL, but it is really a special thing for a lot of folks who are building. We don't talk a lot about this experiential IRL focus. Give me a real use case. Talk me through something successful that you've been a part of.

Ray (5:24): If Consensus is the biggest event, these meet-ups are decentralized events. A lot of them are not launched by the team, but by smaller communities on the ground. For example, Solana has Superteam. I think they started from India. These community members voluntarily do some meet-ups to find builders, participants in the space. And then they meet up, talk about it, and discuss new ideas.

For Memeland, we also have meet-ups in Hong Kong and in different parts of the world. Whenever we have events, we also try to meet our holders. I think this doesn't really happen in the past. When you look at all these big companies in crypto, people talk about community all the time. Whether it's bullshit or not, that's another question. But I think a lot of people feel that they have stronger ownership. “I won't show up just because I want to pump my bag. I also want to meet people who share the same ideas.” I think that part is very important.

Gabby (6:27): We have guild communities in different regions and cities around the world. They really hold the community together. They do the onboarding, so we don't have to do a lot of the work just by ourselves. A lot of the teams carry the work of onboarding for us. It's our job to empower these guild communities, give them opportunities, and then they, in turn, can do the recruitment of people into Web3.

You can watch the full recording on CoinDesk.

Follow Gabby and Ray to learn more about navigating community growth as a founder in Web3.

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