New Model of Web3 Attention Economy: Exploration and Challenges of T-Rex

In the Web3 world, the ownership of user attention and content value is undergoing a transformation. Traditional internet platforms are often controlled by centralized companies, which monopolize and commercialize the value of the data and traffic created by users, making it difficult for users to directly benefit from their own creations or interactions. The principles of decentralization, user ownership, and value consensus advocated by Web3 argue that users should have control over the value of their attention and content.

Around this concept, many innovative projects have emerged in the Web3 sector, among which T-Rex is a noteworthy new attempt. The project recently completed a $17 million Pre-Seed funding round, with a strong lineup of investors. T-Rex is positioned as a Web3 platform aimed at consumer-level entertainment and content distribution, dedicated to bringing mainstream internet users and creators into the Web3 ecosystem. It utilizes the "attention economy" concept to record user interactions on social media and video platforms on-chain and provide crypto rewards, aiming to address issues such as "digital ghost towns" and "mercenary users" in the blockchain ecosystem.

The core goal of T-Rex is to become the infrastructure for the Web3 attention layer. By implementing built-in distribution and incentive mechanisms between Web2 platforms and blockchain through a browser plugin, users can naturally earn token rewards in familiar social, video, and entertainment environments. Its target user group mainly consists of ordinary internet users who frequently use mainstream social entertainment platforms, as well as content creators, gamers, and other groups with high engagement in entertainment content.

On a technical level, T-Rex is built using the Nitro engine provided by Arbitrum Orbit, inheriting the advantages of customizable chains to achieve high throughput, low latency, and extremely low transaction costs. Its core innovation is the Proof-of-Engagement (PoE) consensus mechanism: it captures user interaction behavior through a browser plugin, generating privacy-preserving on-chain proofs and automatically distributing rewards. This mechanism focuses on verifying real user interactions, effectively distinguishing between human and machine behavior.

To enhance user experience, T-Rex is designed with the philosophy of simplifying processes and lowering barriers. Users only need to install a browser plugin to automatically record and receive instant rewards on commonly used social media, without the need to manually create wallets or understand complex encryption technologies. The plugin is scheduled to launch this summer and will provide users with a familiar interface similar to Web2 platforms, while completing on-chain operations and reward distribution in the background on Web3.

In terms of security, T-Rex introduces zkTLS technology to protect data privacy, achieving a secure connection between Web2 content data and the Web3 reward chain. As a chain built on Ethereum ecosystem technology, T-Rex inherits the security and wide compatibility of Ethereum, allowing for seamless integration with mainstream wallets and other Ethereum ecosystem protocols.

However, the model of converting user attention into crypto rewards is not original to T-Rex. The Brave browser, as an early explorer of the Web3 attention economy, has been operating for many years. Brave rewards users for viewing privacy-preserving ads with Basic Attention Token (BAT), which users can use for tipping or withdrawing. As of April 2025, Brave's monthly active users reached 87 million, with approximately 36 million daily active users, indicating a good market acceptance.

Although T-Rex and Brave have similarities in philosophy, there are significant differences between the two in terms of business models, technical paths, and ecological scope. Brave focuses on "privacy-first advertising incentives," while T-Rex expands to all social and content interaction behaviors, attempting to promote the attention incentive model in a larger scale of consumer application scenarios.

The development trajectory of Brave indicates that the "attention economy" has considerable prospects in the mainstream consumer market and has strong appeal to the Web2 user base. T-Rex, with its broader scene coverage and lower usage threshold, is expected to achieve breakthroughs in the consumer-level Web3 field. However, whether it can truly achieve large-scale user adoption and build a sustainable economic model still needs to be tested by the market.