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For Web3 gaming in the Philippines, that scene played out in countless Filipino homes during the pandemic: students and workers, confined by lockdowns, discovered they could earn and build value together.
What started as a curious blend of gaming and crypto would later explode into a cultural phenomenon.
But this was just the proverbial testing ground. Fast forward to late 2024, the scene has matured far beyond those early play-to-earn days.
While the initial gold rush may have cooled, something more substantial has taken root. The Philippines, which served as ground zero for this experiment in digital economies of scale, has maintained its position as the world's most engaged market for Web3 gaming for three consecutive years.
Pioneers through the years
Now, Yield Guild Games (YGG), which pioneered the guild model that mobilized thousands of gamers into communities, is scaling its vision beyond gaming.
In an exclusive interview with Decrypt, Yield Guild Games’ CEO Gabby Dizon spoke with the easy confidence of someone who's watched a wild idea grow into a movement.
"We've always had guild communities as part of YGG since day one," explains Gabby Dizon. "First we started with Axie [with] the scholarship program, then we expanded to other games and added questing and reputation on top of that."
It is with this early model that YGG conceptualized Onchain Guilds, a platform that enables collectives to build and manage their reputation through verifiable records of their work and achievements on the blockchain.
Whether you're a gaming team, an artist, or a group of content creators, the platform provides tools to track contributions, manage shared assets, and access opportunities across YGG's network of partners.
Think of it like LinkedIn meets Discord, but with actual proofs of what you've achieved.
"The reputation is onchain for everyone to see," Dizon notes, explaining how groups can now build trackable histories of their accomplishments. "It's inscribed in your wallet, so you own it, not a social network or any other platform."
Home base
The Web3 guild protocol announced today at the YGG Play Summit that its Onchain Guilds platform will launch on Base, Coinbase's Ethereum Layer-2 network.
Designed to enhance transaction speed and reduce costs while maintaining the security and decentralization of Ethereum, Base was developed using the Optimism Stack.
The L2 enables developers to deploy decentralized applications more efficiently while allowing users to interact with the Ethereum ecosystem at a significantly lower cost.
This matters particularly in the Philippines, where Web3 gaming isn't just a hobby—it's a serious economic force and a life source for those earning an average yearly income between $3,000 and $12,000.
The country has been at the top of global rankings for web3 gaming interest for three years, with a staggering 96% crypto awareness rate, according to research from ConsenSys. Through YGG Pilipinas alone, the community counts 1.2 million members across social platforms.
And this is growing fast because YGG's vision extends beyond gaming, it told Decrypt. Earlier this year, YGG launched its Future of Work division, exploring how these same tools could help freelancers, content creators, and even AI data labeling teams organize and build reputation collectively.
"People are starting to do things like data labeling for AI companies, contributing data for deep end networks that will allow them to earn money," he explains. "I think that a lot of the transactions online will eventually move onchain."
Base's decision to wrap up its global tour in Manila—after stops across Latin America, Africa, and India-–showcases the Philippines' role as a Web3 frontier market. The platform's “buildathons” have been creating a buzz in emerging economies, where digital ownership and verifiable credentials are touted as game changers.
Digital sports
For community members actively participating in its popular Guild Advancement Program, YGG offers staking as a way to boost questing rewards, with plans for broader participation mechanisms tied to casual gaming by early 2025, Decrypt was told.
Reputation, Dizon notes, is a core feature of human interactions. Whether back in Web2 or even offline, when one speaks of or interacts with a person or a group, how they come to be known, based on what they do or have done, often opens how others perceive them.
Drawing an analogy to traditional sports teams, Dizon explains how reputation works for Onchain Guilds.
"If you think of the L.A. Lakers, they have a certain reputation. They've had different members over the decades, but the team itself maintains its reputation: they've won championships, they have a win-lose record collectively."
In a way, the launch of Onchain Guilds on Base feels less like a product release and more like a coming-of-age moment for Web3 communities. As Dizon aptly puts it, with the characteristic optimism of someone who's seen the future arrive ahead of schedule: "This is just a natural evolution of our mission."
This, Dizon believes, is what YGG's Onchain Guilds is building for digital communities—a platform where they could earn and build value together leveraging blockchain technology.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair