Over the past decade, the crypto field has significantly advanced, with technology maturing and applications becoming more practical. However, bringing decentralized technology to mainstream users remains challenging due to factors like the complexity of the technology, a steep learning curve, and a lack of “killer apps.” Most solutions aim to lower the entry barrier, encouraging Web2 users to enter the Web3 space through new products and services. In this process, the real challenge often lies not in technological development but in acquiring, converting, and retaining traditional users.

Sidekick takes a different approach, actively engaging with existing traffic. Rather than relying solely on new user acquisition, Sidekick leverages crypto’s decentralized features to meet specific user needs and solve particular pain points, resulting in products that genuinely align with market demands.

With this goal in mind, Sidekick focuses on the trillion-dollar gaming and social interaction markets, especially the rapidly growing game companion field. By integrating crypto into traditional game companion experiences, Sidekick opens new growth opportunities for players and creators, aiming to reshape and enhance the global gaming ecosystem.

What is Sidekick?

Sidekick is a blockchain-based gaming and social platform that connects users with professional gamers, creative talents, and affiliate partners across Discord, Telegram, and X (formerly Twitter). It offers a fun way to play games, chat, and learn together.

Source: Sidekick

Sidekick’s core application scenario is gaming socialization. Its ecosystem has three main roles: users, creators (companions), and affiliate partners.

• Users

Gamers are Sidekick’s target audience, though its reach is broader. This platform allows users to seek gaming companions, learn new game strategies, improve their skills, or simply make new friends. Sidekick supports a more high-quality gaming experience to meet users’ entertainment needs, providing more diverse and personalized services.

• Creators (Companions)

Sidekick supports creators in monetizing their knowledge and skills. Anyone who wants to share their skills, resources, and creativity can become a creator on the platform. At Sidekick’s core, creators may be professional gaming companions guiding players or experts in a specific field sharing knowledge and insights with users. This diversity in roles offers Sidekick users richer support across different areas of interest.

• Affiliate Partners

On Sidekick, affiliate partners refer to administrators or moderators of Discord servers, Telegram groups, and other social media groups. By integrating Sidekick Bot into their groups, they can expand their influence and convert private traffic into revenue, enabling easy monetization.

As of now, Sidekick has amassed over 980,000 affiliate partners, mainly from online social platforms like Trovo, Tom’s Lounge, I Love You, and Hot Cafe.

Sidekick Team Background and Funding

Founded in 2022, Sidekick’s core team possesses extensive gaming experience and resources. Public information shows that Sidekick co-founder Jonny is a seasoned gamer and industry professional, having won the UK LOL league championship in 2014 and 2015 and founded SideQuest Meta in 2020. Partner D.F is a co-founder of Trovo.live, owner of the streaming network Wings, and operations head of the PUBG Championship League.

The strong team capability and innovative project solutions have also earned Sidekick recognition and support from Binance Labs. In late August, Sidekick was successfully selected as one of the winning projects of the 7th season of BNBChain MVB (Most Valuable Builder) and received investment from Binance Labs (specific amount undisclosed). Additionally, Sidekick received support from BNB Chain’s Launch-as-a-Service (LaaS) package, which covers infrastructure, security, funds management, business growth, and marketing, valued at up to $300,000. In September, Sidekick was again recognized with the “Rising Star” title in this year’s BNBChain ecosystem Catalyst awards.

Additionally, Sidekick has received exclusive support from Trovo.live. As the largest streaming platform in Eastern Europe, Trovo.live has over 1 million content creators and 23 million registered users. With their close cooperation, Sidekick can provide companion services to gamers and nurture casual gamers into professional esports players, offering content creators more resources and support to realize a new revenue stream by monetizing their skills.

Sidekick’s Core Operations

Sidekick has integrated companion play bot services directly into Discord and plans to launch a Telegram version soon.

For regular users, ordering a companion play service is straightforward and works as follows:

1) Join the Sidekick server with your Discord account. In the message box, type “/order,” choose a category, and press Enter.
2) Check your private messages from Sidekick, select a companion you’re interested in, and type “Go.”
3) You’ll receive a link; follow the steps to pay through Binance or fiat currency. Once the payment is complete, you’ll be invited to a private chat to discuss details.

Source: Sidekick

For creators, applying as a companion on Sidekick is equally simple. The steps are as follows:

1) Join the Sidekick server with your Discord account.
2) Complete the necessary verification steps.
3) Once verified, a new “Bot-commands” channel will appear on the server. Type “/profile” and send it, then click “Go to Profile” to open the WebApp and complete registration.
4) For first-time logins, you’ll be redirected to a Discord verification page, which is required for Sidekick to create a decentralized wallet and link your Discord account to your personal profile.
5) After verification, your registration page will appear in the WebApp. Complete your profile by entering your personal details.

Source: Sidekick

6) Creators then set up their services.
7) After creating the service, an official coordinator must approve it. Once approved, the service will be visible on Discord, allowing users to find it by typing “/find” and the creator’s name in the “Bot-commands” channel on the Sidekick server.

Affiliate partners on Sidekick can access many opportunities and growth possibilities.

The Sidekick team believes that the traditional and Web3 gaming sectors face rising development and distribution costs. Affiliate partners can effectively support content creation and social connections, reaching private user groups and linking the entire gaming and social ecosystem.

However, based on recent interactions, the team has identified two major challenges faced by affiliate partners:

• The lack of effective tools and mechanisms to measure and monetize their community contributions.
• A shortage of AI resources for personalizing user experiences and maximizing their creativity in content creation and community management.

In response, Sidekick has developed solutions for affiliate partners focused on two areas. First, they’re working on monetization with features like revenue-sharing, custodial services, and sharing tools. Second, they aim to offer AI-driven services. While significant progress has been made on monetization, AI services will be developed as technology advances.

If you’re an administrator or moderator of a Discord, Telegram, or other social media group, you simply need to install the Sidekick bot in your group and collaborate with the team to become an affiliate partner. The steps are as follows:

1) Log into the Affiliate Partner Dashboard with your Discord account. The team will create a wallet for you, displaying wallet balance, address, and private key.

Source: Sidekick

2) Add the Sidekick bot to your server, ensuring the “Administrator” box is checked.
3) Submit the affiliate partner application form. The team will contact you via Discord to update you on the progress of your application.

Currently, affiliate partners receive basic rewards based on their community size and can share in a $1 million bonus pool by completing sessions and responding promptly. Additionally, Sidekick offers a revenue-sharing program, where each affiliate partner receives a percentage of revenue from every successful transaction initiated within their community.

Sidekick Economic Mechanism Design

To attract more creators and affiliate partners, Sidekick is continually launching incentive programs. Beyond the $1 million prize pool mentioned earlier, Sidekick has rolled out a creator incentive program where selected creators can earn up to $1,600 in monthly bonuses, encouraging their contributions to the player community and the broader ecosystem.

With a focus on supporting player needs, offering meaningful opportunities for creators, and building the influence and resources of affiliate partners, Sidekick aims to create a vibrant ecosystem that fuels a positive growth cycle. Revenue generated from real user value—such as commissions, subscription fees, and ad monetization—forms the underlying structure supporting Sidekick’s development and expansion.

In its white paper, Sidekick divides its token economy into three levels: foundational revenue, internal market, and external market.

Foundational Revenue: This first level is based on the operational income generated by the community ecosystem.

Internal Market: The second level involves on-chain token circulation. Sidekick plans to introduce “organizational tokens” to represent the income and monetization potential of online communities like Discord servers. An L2 solution within an L1 ecosystem will support these tokens’ operations, trading, staking, and more.

External Market: Once tokens are issued, they will be publicly traded in external markets through P2P, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and centralized exchanges (CEXs), forming the third level of the token economy.

The team envisions that a strong foundation of operational income will support internal market activities, such as increasing Total Value Locked (TVL) on-chain. This can drive token price growth, attracting more users and creating a virtuous cycle that elevates the platform’s overall ecosystem value.

Sidekick’s Ecosystem Development and Future Outlook

Following its three-layer token economy model, Sidekick has outlined a roadmap split into three phases.

• Phase 1: Develop products centered on skill monetization and customizable AI features, focusing on creating basic income streams for affiliate partners.
• Phase 2: Continue product refinement, build token-focused infrastructure, and expand token listings and liquidity.
• Phase 3: Upgrade products, grow the community, and support multi-platform token listings.

Currently, Sidekick is in Phase 1. At the end of May, Sidekick launched a closed beta of its WebApp, with an official marketplace set to go live soon.

To deepen connections between users and creators, the team has launched a Telegram-based app, SideFans, allowing users to convert their support for creators into actual digital value, opening a new era of fan engagement.

Source: SideFans

SideFans Season 2 launched in late August. Users can earn diamonds based on their Telegram registration date, tasks completed, and friend invitations. According to official information, diamonds are the key; user support will unlock additional rewards in the future. An internal leaderboard on SideFans indicates that Season 2 users have already surpassed 12 million.

Conclusion

Sidekick integrates crypto technology seamlessly into the gaming companion market, establishing an ecosystem that brings users, companions, and affiliate partners together. This platform addresses users’ varied and personalized needs and provides creators with new opportunities to monetize their skills and community resources, advancing the growth of the creator-sharing economy.

With a strong user base backed by a trillion-dollar gaming market and over 3 billion players, Sidekick’s main strength lies in its vast traffic support. The key to its success is creating accessible crypto products and actively promoting the creator economy model, essential to Sidekick’s ecosystem growth and sustainable development.