Since last weekend, the project CirclesUBI has been widely spread in Chinese cryptocurrency circles. Because of its ability to collect Circles for free and issue their own personal tokens, many users are promoting their own QR codes in the community in the hope of gaining others’ trust operations.
In the concept of CirclesUBI, this is a mode in which UBI effects can be formed. UBI, the universal basic income, is no longer a new term in the crypto circle. Many projects like EOS, ENU, Banano, etc. have hoped to combine the blockchain with UBI, but the effect is not ideal.
How about CirclesUBI? The UBI of this project is more intuitive. In short, it is formed by sending money to everyone. This logic is not universally accepted, just as the idea of a country printing money to enrich its inhabitants in a region of extreme poverty, it does not stand up to scrutiny. To be more precise, this is just currency based UBI.
But perhaps the focus of CirclesUBI should not be on UBI but on social intercourse.
The concept of social token
Social tokens, in this case, are not usual “Social app tokens.” ONO, Steem, Reddit, even drops of Weibo’s oasis last year are all “platform tokens.”
“Social platform tokens” are characterized by the circulation of value within the platform, but “social tokens” are not. The latter is based on people.
The core of social tokens is the idea that to get a service from other persons.
According to the application example in the CirclesUBI white paper, it can be understood that two users who have a mutual trust can transfer each other at 1:1 exchange rate. Alice who has 10 AliceCoin and Carol who has 10 CarolCoin can transfer 5 of their respective tokens. As a result, they each have 5 AliceCoin and 5 CarolCoin.
There must be a transaction when the transfer takes place. The reason why Alice wants to transfer money to Carol is based on two premises: First, Alice trusts Carol; second, Alice can obtain goods or services that Alice thinks are equivalent in value. And these two are the basis of social tokens.
Trust + service spawns social tokens. In general, social tokens can be divided into two categories: individual tokens and community tokens, with the latter more like an iterative development of the former.
Individual tokens are issued by individuals to exchange for the services or labor of others; When a person’s services develop and form a community, then individual tokens also evolve into community tokens. Community tokens can be understood as members, but the core of such members is still individuals. For example, there will be some paying communities, and the group manager does paid knowledge, when he issues a token and members then can use this token to pay for the knowledge. And this token can be regarded as a “social token”.
In other words, what “social tokens” actually do is decentralized paid knowledge. The form of platform disappears, and users or fans connect directly with “trusters”. More directly, users invest not in products but in people.
In the concept of CirclesUBI, UBI is not the point, social intercourse is. In this project, individual tokens are issued on a mass basis, and these coin-based tokens are exchanged between parties who trust each other and need to provide services. The downside of this, of course, is that the token model is too fungible, but at least it solves the boot problem.
In fact, before CirclesUBI, the track of social tokens had already gained a certain scale.
Projects of Social Tokens
There are 15 social tokens available on Zerion, the most famous of which is probably the NFT WHALE, which has a market cap of $25 million. We have sorted out the relatively mainstream social tokens at present, and you can get the whole picture of this section.
ALEX
ALEX is the starting point for many people as they start to learn about social tokens. The reason why it’s getting so much attention is because ALEX is the most unique one of the tokens in a way that no one has ever seen before. Founder Alex Masmej issued the token to raise enough money to move to San Francisco to continue his work in crypto sector, and he actually raised $20,000 from the “First Alex release” to complete the move.
ALEX combines the concept of “mini revenue-sharing agreement” with IPO. Alex Masmej will allocate 15% of his income to the token holder each quarter for three years after its issuance; At the same time, ALEX holders will also receive privileges such as private meetings with Alex, and voting governance to help him make decisions.
SWAGG
SWAGG is a diverse social network with the SWAGG community at its center. “Our goal has always been to keep community members engaged and moving forward with the community through an interesting intersection of crypto, culture, community collaboration, and creativity,” says Carlos Gomez, SWAGG’s founder.
In other words, SWAGG can be used in a variety of ways. Holders can participate in the entire ecosystem built around SWAGG tokens.
The specific uses of SWAGG include: access art works in SWAGG network, get SWAGG airdrops before the public sale and fund for a project launched by the community, at the same time, the community members can share valuable content to receive SWAGG reward, it can also be exchanged for community creation and voting for suggestions on SWAGG community.
JAMM
JAMM is used as a payment for reading “JAMM Session” blog posts, and the current price is 1000 JAMM per post.
Using social tokens as a way to pay for reading blog posts is a perfect incentive. In general, subscribers have to use fiat when they pay for media. The price paid by each subscriber is same, and there is no connection between the new subscribers and the original subscribers. However, with JAMM as a means of payment, new subscribers need to buy JAMM tokens in order to pay for their reading. The more subscribers, the greater the demand for JAMM. When the demand increases, the price of JAMM will rise, and the original subscribers will also get extra dividends because they hold JAMM tokens. Therefore, the original subscribers will also recommend Jamm Session to others, so that the Jamm community can get more subscribers, more money and social support, which can be turned into the power of sustainable development.
COIN
COIN Community is an “inclusive and experimental community supported by game-based social networks,” created by crypto artist COIN Artist. COIN holders have access to a social network called E-den. This community has a say in where COIN goes. Besides, community members can also do some interesting things, such as designing crypto puzzles, in which the cryptocurrency’s address is embedded in crypto art works, and those who solve the puzzle will be able to own the cryptocurrencyy. It’s the reason why Coin Artist is so famous. She once embedded five BTC in “The Legend of Satoshi Nakomoto,” and the price have shot up in value to about $50,000 when the puzzle was solved.
In addition, COIN tokens have an interesting mechanism that allows COIN holders to exchange their tokens for CRED tokens. In the upcoming game Neon Zone, CRED tokens will be exchanged for rare items in the game.
WHALE
WHALE is by far the most successful social token, launched by WhaleShark in May 2020, with a market cap of up to $30 million. Even more incredibly, WHALE has now expanded into a complete ecosystem and community, and created a DAO that is completely managed by the community.
Unlike other social tokens, the value of WHALE is supported by the large number of NFT, which were stored in the WHALE “Vault”. The “Vault” contains about $1.4 million valuation NFT (By September 2020 — audit by nonfungible). WHALE is not only supported by the value of NFT, but also can be used for a range of different functions within the community, such as participating in activities, playing games, WHALE DAO governance, buying NFT from the Vault, and so on.
RAC
RAC is distributed by Grammy-winner RAC. Holders of a certain amount of RAC will be entitled to exclusive privileges such as participating the exclusive product launches held by RAC in digital product markets such as Zora or SuperRare.
SKULL
SKULL is a social token created by Skeenee, a crypto artist based in Madrid, who has a passion for visual depictions of the deconstruction of humans and animals. SKULL tokens can be exchanged for NFT created by Skeenee and accessories such as clothing, hats, art paintings, tattoos, etc.
MORK
MORK is a token issued by crypto artist Hackatao. Holders who own 500 MORK will be able to join the exclusive Discord channel, in which they will be able to discuss art with Hackatao, get real-time updates on the work that Hackatao is creating and publishing, study and analyze crypto art markets, collaborate with Hackatao, and more.
FIRST
FIRST is a community-based social token issued by music producer and well-known DJ Harrison First. First’s works focus on the multi-sensory experience of sight and sound, which connect music, art and the current world of crypto. Token holders will become members of First Generation, an exclusive creative community where they can get DJ packs, talk to First about music and listen to First’s unreleased music in advance. In addition, FIRST holders can receive a weekly airdrop reward by sharing First’s Spotify releases.
CHERRY
The CHERRY community’s idea is simple: to bring creators and token holders together and benefit from the community’s development. There is no third party, it is made up entirely of community members, and they will improve the quality of content and bring more value to community members.
Cherry is a community that accepts adult content (Not safe for work), but it’s not limited to that. The community also has SFW (Safe for Work) creators (illustrators, digital art…) and activities. The community has a separate SFW channel where members can talk about content in any area, such as animation, games, crypto, investing, food, travel, movies, technology, etc.
CHERRY holders are divided into six classes based on token holdings, each with different entitlements such as airdrops, special NFT collections, and so on. Among them, the top 20 CHERRY holders will be able to participate in community governance.
In any case, “social tokens” is still an experiment, and not popular among the entire cryptocurrecny circle. In this market that chases ups and downs, “social tokens” is obscure but elegant. However, it gives us a taste of the early days of cryptocurrency, when bitcoin wasn’t a commodity and geeks paid for it purely out of interest.
Imagine, if in the early years Wu Tiao Ren issued its social tokens as the development funds, and you were bullish on their cases, you would hold their tokens. After this summer, you may never have such a pity that your treasure has been found by crowds, because you regret has been diluted by the growth of token value.
Note: Wu Tiao Ren is a music band, which becomes popular in China after they participated in a music variety show named ”The Big Band”.