What is Layer3 (L3)?

Deep Dive

1. Governance & Decentralization

L3 token holders govern key protocol parameters and the community treasury through a hybrid model combining staking and a Protocol Council (Layer3 Foundation). This council—composed of users staking ≥50,000 L3—reviews proposals, designs incentives, and co-develops governance frameworks. The system prioritizes gradual decentralization over immediate DAO implementation to balance flexibility with credible stakeholder input.

2. Utility & Ecosystem Mechanics

L3 acts as the primary medium for:
- Quest deployment: Projects burn L3 to create campaigns that reward users for completing onchain tasks.
- Access gating: Staking L3 unlocks premium features like analytics dashboards and custom reward pools.
- Liquidity incentives: Over 220M L3 is staked to earn yield, with 100M+ locked long-term to reduce circulating supply (Oct 2025 tweet).

The ecosystem’s “flywheel” relies on CUBEs—non-transferrable NFTs minted by users completing quests. These serve as onchain resumes, letting projects retarget high-value cohorts.

3. Growth Infrastructure

The Layer3 Builder provides tools for:
- Campaign design: Set custom rules for task completion and rewards.
- Audience analytics: Track user behavior across 944 integrated protocols.
- Cross-chain coordination: Supports EVM chains like Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum for multi-network campaigns.

Conclusion

Layer3 positions itself as an engagement layer for Web3, using tokenized incentives to align projects, users, and governance participants. Its phased decentralization and CUBE-based reputation system aim to create sustainable growth—but can it balance scalability with meaningful participation as adoption grows?