by Jascha Samadi, Anies Khan and Markus Hujara – June 12, 2024

Imagine you get rewarded for consuming content that is relevant to you anyway. Crypto can make it happen. EtherMail combines this idea with the most widespread and established communication channel on the Internet. We’ve backed EtherMail since co-leading their seed funding round in 2022 and witnessed the consensual email marketing narrative unfold. Today, EtherMail is launching its $EMT token. We take this milestone as an opportunity to summarize what has been built in the meantime and how email has evolved from a communication tool bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3  to becoming an integrated instrument in the Web3 engagement and payment stack.

With the “Building_” series, we pay tribute to Greenfield portfolio companies recently achieving a significant milestone or breakthrough, contributing to an open, decentralized, and more robust architecture for tomorrow’s web.

The Lindy effect speaks for the email protocol. While the choice of (often centralized) messaging tools has increased significantly over the years (chats, SMS, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Discord, Telegram), well over 300 billion emails are still sent every day. Yet email is anything but perfect for users and advertisers alike. Many emails are often regarded as spam. Relevant content only finds its way into the mailbox after extensive double-opt-in procedures. 

EtherMail brings email into the Web3 era by embracing its decentralized roots, addressing major challenges, and introducing crypto-specific functions, appealing to users at different points in their crypto exploration. 

Below we look at four specific examples of how and for whom Ethermail offers added value, two each on the user side and on the advertiser side.

_1 Email with benefits: Onboarding traditional web users

EtherMail can be used like legacy clients to receive traditional emails and subscribed newsletters. It is compatible with all existing email clients such as Gmail and developed a proprietary app for mobile usage. But on top of that, EtherMail turns readers’ inboxes into a passive income stream. After selecting fields of interest and various “Paywall” parameters, users get micro-incentives for reading “Read2Earn” content sent to their inbox.

At its core, EtherMail‘s consensual marketing solution offers a Web3 application with the familiar look and feel of a commonly used communication channel. This facilitates onboarding and the first successful points of contact with elements of the Web3 value set, such as ownership, transparency, and alignment of interest. 

_2 Email as a wallet: Enhancing the crypto transaction experience

The EtherMail mail client has also evolved into a hub for active crypto users. Moonpay, one of the numerous “DAapplet” integrations, allows, for example, fiat on-ramp by facilitating email code verification. The “Paymail” feature is another innovation that comes in handy with crypto transactions. It uses two-factor authentication to send and claim onchain assets effortlessly, ensuring that funds always arrive at the correct recipient. It also enables gas-free test transactions to improve accuracy and safety. 

Thanks to the “TX-Ray” feature, whenever a purchase is initiated, instead of an immediate transaction, the user receives a detailed email in their EtherMail inbox outlining the specifics of what they are about to sign or purchase.

_3 Email as a community builder: Accelerating engagement of token holders

Every wallet by default is tied to a virtual inbox which is waiting to be activated. This means that both parties don’t need to have accounts or share their email addresses before being able to message one another. This is particularly exciting for crypto projects in order to get in touch with existing token holders without them having to actively become part of their community – as it is the case with Discord or Telegram. Advertisers can build up their decentralized community and keep it up to date. They can run ultra-individualized, smart automated marketing and engagement campaigns tailored to the user’s on-chain actions  (e.g., send an email to everyone who bought the token in the last 24 hours).

“Email as a community builder” creates a flywheel effect for EtherMail. Projects act as an external marketing agency, making their holder base aware of EtherMail through targeted campaigns. Some newly onboarded users might then consider setting up EtherMail campaigns for their own projects.  

_4 Email as an acquisition engine: Reaching valuable prospects

EtherMail started to expand on its growing user base and on-chain data, respectively wallet history including asset holdings, protocol interactions and even financial performance. By evolving into a multi-purpose advertising platform, any token project, or even non-crypto-native companies for that matter, can reach EtherMail users outside their token-holder base with the right characteristics. Let’s remember that EtherMail users can actively decide to give consent to receive relevant advertising content and that they are rewarded accordingly for their attention. Interest and incentivization in combination almost inevitably enhance the effectiveness of promotional messages compared to conventional ads and random email campaigns in particular.

Traction: 200k monthly active users

EtherMail delivers on that promise: Campaign showcases provided by the team indicate superior engagement rates. Let’s take the example of click-through rates (CTR): While email campaigns across all industries have an average CTR of 2-5%, EtherMail campaigns achieve more than 10%, in some cases even up to 40% or more.

EtherMail currently caters to 150 customers, including well-known crypto outlets like Decrypt, Consensys and MilkRoad. 100+ Web3 communities use EtherMail as their primary communication channel. 

EtherMail has approximately 200k monthly active users that log into their account throughout 2024. The mobile app launched in March and has already been downloaded 100.000 times. 

TGE: Holders await special features

Now, the $EMT utility token has launched on the Base blockchain as an ERC-20 token. It is listed and traded on several exchanges, including Gate.io, Bitget and MEXC. It will also be available for trading and liquidity provision on popular DEXes. 

The token will be rewarded for actively participating in consensual marketing campaigns. Holders will get access to premium features in the inbox and will be accepted as payment options by corresponding services. 

To sum it up, EtherMail has grown from establishing a Web3-native email protocol to becoming a key tool for web3 engagement, consensual marketing, and payments, poised to onboard the next wave of users to web3.

It’s time to explore your EtherMail inbox. Remember, if you have an Ethereum wallet, your EtherMail address is already set up (and you might have emails). It’s just waiting for you to activate it here.