New Explorations in Web3 Attention Economy: Reshaping User Value and the Rise of Consumer-Level Applications

In traditional internet platforms, the data and traffic value created by users are often controlled and commercialized by centralized companies, making it difficult for users to directly benefit from their creations or interactions. The concept of Web3 emphasizes decentralization, user ownership, and value consensus, advocating that users should have control over their attention and content value.

Around this concept, multiple projects in the Web3 industry have been making attempts. Among them, the consumer entertainment platform T-Rex recently completed a $17 million Pre-Seed funding round, receiving support from several well-known investment institutions.

T-Rex focuses on consumer-grade entertainment and content distribution, developed under the leadership of a venture capital group. The project aims to bring mainstream internet users and content creators into the Web3 ecosystem, recording user interactions on social media and video platforms onto the blockchain and providing crypto rewards through the concept of "attention economy." This approach seeks to address the phenomena of "digital ghost towns" and the issue of "mercenary users" within the blockchain ecosystem.

The core goal of T-Rex is to become the infrastructure of the Web3 attention layer. It achieves built-in distribution and incentive mechanisms between Web2 platforms and the blockchain through a browser plugin, allowing users to naturally earn token rewards in familiar social, video, and entertainment environments. Its main target audience includes ordinary consumer-level users, such as internet users who frequently use mainstream social entertainment platforms, content creators, and highly engaged gamers.

On the technical level, T-Rex adopts a blockchain solution that supports high throughput, low latency, and extremely low transaction costs, meeting the demand for instant response in consumer-level applications. Its core innovation is the Proof-of-Engagement (PoE) consensus mechanism, which captures user interactions on commonly used social platforms through a browser plugin, generates privacy-protected on-chain proofs, and automatically distributes points and token rewards.

T-Rex also focuses on simplifying the user experience and lowering the barriers to entry. Users only need to install a browser extension to earn rewards on the social media and video platforms they use daily, without having to manually create a wallet or delve into cryptocurrency technology. The extension is expected to be launched this summer, aiming to provide users with a familiar interface similar to Web2 platforms, while handling Web3 on-chain operations and reward distribution in the background.

In terms of security, T-Rex introduces zero-knowledge transport layer security technology to protect data privacy, achieving a secure connection between Web2 content data and the Web3 reward chain. As a chain built on Ethereum's ecological technology, T-Rex inherits Ethereum's security and broad compatibility, allowing seamless integration with mainstream wallets and other Ethereum ecological protocols.

Similar attention economy models have existed before, such as the Brave browser. Brave launched its Ethereum-based Basic Attention Token (BAT) reward mechanism in 2019, allowing users to selectively view privacy-respecting ads and earn rewards. As of April 2025, Brave's monthly active users have reached 87 million, with daily active users around 36 million, demonstrating strong market acceptance.

Although T-Rex and Brave share similarities in their concepts, there are significant differences between them in terms of business models, technological paths, and ecological scopes. Brave focuses on "privacy-first advertising incentives," while T-Rex expands to a broader range of social and content interaction behaviors, attempting to promote attention incentive models in larger-scale consumer application scenarios.

Overall, Brave's development trajectory indicates that the "attention economy" has considerable prospects in the mainstream consumer market and has strong appeal to the Web2 user base. Meanwhile, T-Rex, with its broader scenario coverage and lower barriers to entry, is expected to achieve breakthrough progress in the consumer-level Web3 space. As these projects continue to evolve, the Web3 attention economy may face new opportunities and challenges.