Elroy Cheo's Vision: Building Digital-First Communities for Asia's Web3 Generation

When Elroy Cheo envisioned ARC, he wasn’t thinking about another crypto project chasing fleeting market trends. Instead, he conceived a meritocratic digital institution that would bring together the global Asian diaspora around shared values and collective purpose. Alongside co-founder Kiat Lim, the son of billionaire Peter Lim, Cheo transformed ARC into a thriving Web3 collective that now operates at the intersection of community, culture, and innovation.

At its core, ARC offers members access to exclusive tools—a Stellar-based NFT and a Soulbound Token called Fyrian—that unlock entry to the ARC app, specialized events, and curated merchandise. But the real innovation lies in how Elroy Cheo approached the fundamental challenge facing Web3: creating genuine human connection in a digital-first world.

From Property to Protocol: Elroy Cheo’s Unconventional Path to Web3

The trajectory of Elroy Cheo’s career reveals how diverse experiences can converge into a singular vision. Before his foray into blockchain, Cheo spent years in commodities trading and property development, including overseeing a massive city-building project in China. Arriving at barren land dotted with farmland, his team orchestrated the development of entire infrastructure—roads, utilities, residential zones—transforming it into a thriving economic hub with impressive GDP growth. That foundational lesson stayed with him: the power of bringing people together to create value from nothing.

His entry into crypto came through an unlikely channel—his uncle, a 73-year-old software developer. Together, they collaborated on a blockchain-based music copyright project designed to solve a persistent industry problem: ownership disputes and siloed databases. Rather than creating another speculative token project, Cheo focused on building genuine utility. The project survives to this day without requiring a token mechanism, a testament to his philosophy that crypto should create tangible value, not merely facilitate speculation.

This experience shaped how Elroy Cheo views the entire Web3 landscape. He drew inspiration from network state theory championed by venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan, but rejected the nation-state ambitions in favor of something more grounded: a digital-first institution aligned around shared principles and coordinated action.

The Four Pillars of Authentic Community Building

The cryptocurrency ecosystem often uses “community” as a marketing buzzword, stripping it of meaning in the process. Elroy Cheo took a different approach with ARC, grounding membership around four concrete value propositions that members consistently prioritize.

First, members gain access to curated professional networks—vetted connections with builders, investors, and industry pioneers. Second, ARC unlocks financial opportunities, including allocations to promising investment opportunities before public availability. Third, the organization facilitates lifestyle experiences that create memorable touchstones: networking with celebrity figures like soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, or engaging exclusive partnerships with luxury brands.

Finally, members receive tangible growth opportunities, whether through job placements, skill development, or direct mentorship from experienced operators. Underlying all four pillars runs a philosophy borrowed from traditional Chinese culture: guanxi, the concept of mutually beneficial relationships. Within ARC, members aren’t simply asking for insider information or “alpha.” Instead, the community operates on a reciprocal principle: you generate value for others, and value flows back to you.

This framework has proven remarkably effective at filtering for serious participants while maintaining a culture of genuine collaboration rather than transactional extraction.

Why Asia’s Web3 Communities Operate Differently

The global Web3 ecosystem often appears dominated by Western voices, particularly on social media platforms. Crypto Twitter reverberates with American and European commentary, creating a perception that innovation concentrates in these regions. The reality, according to Elroy Cheo, masks a crucial market dynamic: Asian participants tend toward privacy and discretion, conducting serious business in private channels like WeChat groups and Telegram rather than public-facing discourse.

This reticence masks enormous financial firepower. Small Chinese communities regularly mobilize sufficient liquidity to inject $1 billion into decentralized finance protocols in a single day—a level of coordinated capital deployment rarely witnessed in Western crypto markets. Elroy Cheo recognized that ARC could harness this unique strength while simultaneously encouraging members to amplify their voices in public discourse. The opportunity, in his view, represents more than capturing liquidity flows; it’s about ensuring Asia claims the intellectual mindshare and narrative authority that should accompany its market influence.

The cultural infrastructure supporting Asian Web3 communities differs markedly from Western counterparts. Regulatory environments vary, user preferences diverge, and the types of projects gaining traction reflect regional priorities. Elroy Cheo’s framework at ARC acknowledges these differences while building bridges between Asia’s Web3 ecosystem and global participants.

NFTs as Digital Identity: Beyond Collectibles

When discussing the evolution of non-fungible tokens, Elroy Cheo’s eyes light up around the concept of pseudonymity and digital avatars. The shift from polished LinkedIn profiles and professional headshots to cartoon avatars and digital personas represents, in his view, genuine empowerment. Young developers and creators can establish professional credibility through demonstrated skills and knowledge, with their avatar serving as the bearer of reputation rather than their legal identity.

This reimagining opens entirely new possibilities for NFT utility. Rather than existing purely as collectible art or speculation vehicles, NFTs could function as status symbols with real-world utility—imagine an NFT that grants instant recognition and preferential treatment when presented at exclusive venues or events. Beyond status, NFTs represent a framework for tokenizing expertise and achievement. Stack Overflow badges provided early hints at this model; NFT-based credentials could vastly expand this paradigm, creating portable, verifiable records of skills and accomplishments.

For Elroy Cheo, this represents NFTs’ true evolution: artifacts that embed identity, expertise, and reputation into digital form, with meaningful implications for how individuals navigate both digital and physical spaces.

Scaling Exclusivity: How ARC Maintains Brand Value at 888 Members

With ARC capped at precisely 888 members, a natural question emerges: how does an organization maintain growth trajectory without expanding its member base? The answer, according to Elroy Cheo, lies in understanding how exclusivity generates and preserves brand value.

By maintaining a deliberately restricted membership, ARC ensures that quality remains paramount. Leadership can dedicate genuine attention to member experience, curate high-caliber participants, and maintain cultural coherence across the network. The constraint forces intentionality in every decision rather than pursuing growth for its own sake.

Yet scaling remains possible through the right architectural approaches. Elroy Cheo points to Reddit’s evolution as instructive: a single community moderator can oversee millions of users by implementing clear guidelines and delegating moderation responsibilities. Translated to ARC’s context, scaling means growing through satellite communities and specialized sub-groups rather than inflating the core membership.

The real lever, though, remains brand equity. When Elroy Cheo’s team approached the luxury hotel chain Edition before its Singapore opening, executives granted ARC members exclusive hospitality rates and special treatment. When asked why, the response was straightforward: “You’re ARC.” That brand recognition—built through consistent delivery of value, careful curation, and demonstrated cultural influence—becomes the scaling mechanism.

ARC supplements this through a contributor system that incentivizes active participation. Members who generate value for the community—whether through introductions, content creation, or thought leadership—gain preferential access to deals, events, and unique experiences. This ensures the community remains dynamic and aligned around contribution rather than passive membership.

The NFT-Community Flywheel: Redefining Brand Engagement

Elroy Cheo observes a persistent misconception across Asia: companies and established brands treating NFTs purely as revenue-generation mechanisms. Many Asian intellectual properties rushed to launch NFT collections, approaching them as transactional exercises rather than authentic community-building infrastructure.

The untapped potential lies in reimagining NFTs as the entry ramp to a community rather than the endpoint of a transaction. Imagine a beloved boba tea shop offering NFTs to transform casual customers into committed community members. Rather than a linear marketing funnel—awareness, consideration, conversion—the NFT creates a non-linear experience where members stay engaged, participate in governance decisions, and organically promote the brand to their networks. They become advocates rather than merely repeat customers.

This NFT-community flywheel particularly resonates for regional brands seeking to deepen customer loyalty and create genuine differentiation. For Elroy Cheo, it exemplifies how Web3 primitives can enhance real-world engagement when deployed thoughtfully.

Asian Talent and the Future of Web3 Innovation

Looking ahead, Elroy Cheo identifies a profound opportunity concentrated in human capital. Asia harbors exceptional developer talent—engineers from Vietnam, China, Singapore and throughout Southeast Asia who possess world-class technical capabilities. The primary friction point: internationalization. Language barriers and limited exposure to global networks have historically confined brilliant projects to regional markets rather than achieving worldwide adoption.

As Web3 infrastructure continues maturing and becoming more accessible, this constraint should ease. Simultaneously, artificial intelligence represents an exciting frontier. The convergence of exceptional engineering talent, improving infrastructure, and AI capabilities positions Southeast Asia specifically as a potential epicenter for decentralized finance and NFT innovation.

Elroy Cheo’s enthusiasm for these dynamics isn’t speculative; it reflects genuine confidence in the region’s technical depth and emerging market conditions that could unleash that talent globally.

Building Through Bear Markets: Lessons for Web3 Entrepreneurs

ARC launched in January 2022—not a moment of euphoric bull market, but rather the precipice of a crushing bear market. The timing, though seemingly inauspicious, proved clarifying. For Elroy Cheo, that crucible revealed an essential truth: sustainable projects require deep founder passion rather than market momentum.

When crypto narratives shift—as they perpetually do—founders without genuine conviction tend to burn out and abandon their endeavors. The builders who persist through market downturns share a common thread: they remain obsessed with their core mission rather than chasing market trends. Elroy Cheo’s advice to aspiring Web3 entrepreneurs emphasizes this foundation: maintain hunger and curiosity, approach your projects as social experiments, and execute rapidly while maintaining clear strategic goals.

The bear market launch, in retrospect, became ARC’s competitive advantage. By building during skepticism rather than hype, the organization attracted mission-driven members rather than speculation-hungry participants. The foundation proved sturdy precisely because it was tested during adversity.

The Web3 Social Product: Community First, Tokenomics Second

As the Web3 ecosystem continues evolving, Elroy Cheo advocates for a paradigm shift: prioritize community formation before layer on tokenomics and governance structures. This represents an inversion of typical crypto project development, which often begins with token design and then attempts to build community around economic incentives.

His framework—which he terms the Web3 social product—starts by establishing a highly aligned, digitally-native community bound by shared values and coordinated action. Once that community foundation stabilizes, introducing fungible tokens to coordinate members toward specific goals becomes far more effective. The token amplifies existing community strength rather than attempting to create coherence where none existed.

This community-first orientation gained particular relevance post-COVID, when digital tools like Zoom and Google Meet normalized the possibility of building genuine human relationships across geographic boundaries. Digital communities, once considered curiosities, have become the authentic expression of how networked humans now congregate.

For Elroy Cheo and the vision embedded within ARC, that shift represents the next frontier: digital-first institutions that maintain human connection and authentic collaboration at scale. Web3 provides the technical scaffolding; the real innovation lies in recognizing that the future of community is fundamentally digital, geographically dispersed, and potentially far more meritocratic than analog predecessors.