Yes, There Are Three Things You Should Learn From Web3 Economy Design
Web3 is on virtually no one's year-end review, or forward predictions, and for just reasons. The industry has failed to evolve beyond its strange cohort of diehards. And while it hasn't died, it certainly hasn't grown. Regardless of its future, there's actually some interesting design if you can look past the bullshit. Most of it has exploded, destroying projects in one way or another, and yet the mechanics remain interesting toys to examine.
1. Staking
In Web3, staking locks hard currency into a wallet in exchange for ongoing benefits. The explicit goal is price support (the quantity supplied of the token decreases, which in turn increases the price). But abstracted from crypto, staking is simply a way for players to set aside hard currency without destroying it while still deriving value.
Staking is not a sink in the literal sense: players retain ownership and liquidity in the future but gain benefits in the present. Since hard currency can't be extracted outside the system (unlike tokens), it effectively becomes spent and depreciated on a different time horizon, but still increases money flowing into the system.
As a design primitive, staking is closer to a savings account than a monetization trick, which opens space for VIP systems that reward balance maintenance rather than sunk costs. Mid-core games have been sleeping on this mechanic. There are some versions of it, like Vault and 4X games, but I wish everyone would push it harder, certainly Chinese games.
2. Uniqueness
This is not a Web3 invention. Physical collectibles have serial numbers, and trading cards have editions. Yet cosmetic economies have largely ignored true uniqueness, opting instead for infinite supply skins differentiated only by timing and (sometimes) price. It's such a small ad that can drive more price heterogeneity, and missing it seems nonsensical, especially for something like FIFA. Look no further than the recent social media trail of the "Kabuto King."
More recently, Garena Free Fire has gone further by attaching serial numbers to cosmetics and selling them through auctions. This does two things at once: it differentiates cosmetics within their own supply, and it lets the market, not the designer, discover value.
3. Auction-based markets
These never disappeared, but they are sneakily resurgent: Warthunder, CS:GO 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Delta Force, Tarkov (and Roblox?!). They cluster around PC shooters and around players who value mastery, collectability, and competition.
Markets create new player segments, not just function as producer-side price discovery. Consumer price discovery is actually a game that participants play, deepening the connection to the game, regardless of real-world value fluctuations. Even markets using only "in-circuit" money still open up gameplay.