Social tokens are one of the more interesting projects within the crypto space as new innovations, ideas and tech help push the bounds of what is possible. Over the past few years, we’ve seen crypto projects mushroom as new market entrants leverage the latest breakthroughs to support new applications for existing and emerging blockchain technology.
With the future of Web 3.0 looking more flexible and less structured than current web protocols, we’ve seen a big push in the crypto space for decentralization and greater fairness as a way of better supporting communities across the world.
Social tokens play into this idea of empowering communities and reimagining current operating models to become fairer, more integrated, and more inclusive than ever before. Social tokens are powered by underlying crypto and blockchain technology and their value is reflected in the growth of shared creative communities and projects.
In our current media landscape, content creators, photographers, musicians, video creators, and other artists create content that is shared across 3rd party platforms like TikTok and Instagram. While some of these creators are able to monetize their popularity, for the most part, it remains big platforms owned by media companies like Facebook that reap the biggest rewards for original content.
Social tokens are an attempt to redress this balance more firmly in favor of the artists and the creative communities that sustain their popularity. Social tokens remove the reliance on third-party platforms for creators with communities able to buy or invest in social tokens unique to a particular creator or artist. In this way, these creators can become their own mini economy. Social tokens can be bought as an investment, can be used as a medium for exchange, and can be the foundation for exclusive community access. Social tokens may go up and down in value like any other asset and are often built on the back of established cryptocurrency blockchain networks like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Because they’re so new, investors and collectors should take extra care before buying or investing in social tokens.
How do Social Tokens work?
To understand how social tokens work it is important first to distinguish them from crypto coins. Remember, a digital or crypto coin like Bitcoin is created or mined on its own unique blockchain and has a value that rises and falls based on confidence in the asset – much like regular fiat currencies. They are used as stores of value and for buying and selling goods, services, products, and other digital or fiat currencies.
Tokens on the other hand are more flexible than crypto coins and have potentially a far wider variety of applications and use. Tokens are created on an existing blockchain and can be used as part of an app. Tokens are relatively easy to create but valid generally only with the creator of the original token.
So, why is this important for social tokens? Content creators are able to use social tokens to distinguish and differentiate themselves while building a long-term community of followers and financing their projects without relying on big third-party platforms.
Generally, there is a limited supply of tokens so as their value grows artists can use them as compensation; they may choose to reward their biggest fans with giveaways or release exclusive behind-the-scenes content, special merchandise, or limited access to shows, pieces of content or invitations to online groups or gated communities. Social tokens allow artists to deliver benefits to their communities and followers, helping boost popularity, drive wider recognition and build a more sustainable fanbase.
This more equitable approach to content ownership opens up new ways for creators and investors to drive value and more directly connects artists and creators with consumers.
Social tokens can be used then in three primary ways:
- As an investment: Due to the limited number of tokens created a Social Token may rise or fall in value depending on the success of the owner’s projects.
- As a medium for exchange: Fans and followers can buy Social Tokens to help fund artists’ or creators’ latest projects or work.
- As a form of access: Artists and social token creators can use tokens as a means of reward or enable fans and followers access to exclusive material or content.
What is Social NFT?
Social NFTs are another of the most innovative and interesting developments within the crypto space right now.
Cryptocurrencies like Solana, Cardano, and Polkadot are fungible which means that any two coins of the same crypto are interchangeable in value; for example, one Sol has the same value as any other Sol, in the same way, that one US dollar has the same value as any other single US dollar.
NFTs however are different – NFT stands for “non-fungible token,” and as the name implies, NFTs are not interchangeable and each has its own unique value. This was one of the original drivers behind the NFT art scene as it allowed collectors to differentiate original standalone digital artworks and assign value to them in a similar way to how art houses have traditionally valued paintings.
Social NFTs borrow the same idea as social tokens around a fairer system and community-driven value. Social NFTs are collections of NFTs, often artworks, which are each completely unique, and their value can rise or fall with fluctuations in demand or popularity. One of the best-known, and easily recognizable, Social NFT projects is the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
BAYC is a collection of 10,000 unique digital artworks, each featuring an ape, but digitally generated and differentiated by using over 170 possible traits, expressions, headwear, clothing, and objects. The BAYC pieces are stored as ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and the creators of the Social NFT project have created an entire community for fans to interact, sell, share and trade bored apes.
Best Social Tokens
Social tokens are still a relatively new entrant to the crypto world and like with the wider market prices can both rise and fall rapidly. Understanding the social tokens you’re interested in is important and research can help weed out potential tokens or projects that represent a potentially poor investment choice.
Because social tokens are still so new to the market, investors and traders should take extra care when reviewing any token as a potential investment. A solid understanding of what social project the token backs, its origins, performance, and potential growth are crucial to making an informed decision.
Due to their novelty, this may mean researching social tokens on platforms and sites not generally well known outside of NFT and crypto spaces. Discord is one of the most popular places for investors and enthusiasts to share news and information about social tokens and related projects while sites like Reddit
Below is a short list of some of the best social tokens out there in 2022. These social tokens are all established and offer investors and collectors potential tokens to research more thoroughly.
Rally
Rally, or RLY as it is abbreviated, is a social token on the Ethereum blockchain which enables other content creators, artists, and brands to launch a social token or currency. RLY acts as an ETH sidechain for artists to create their own digital economies and it has been built to be as open and compatible as possible.
SWAGG
The SWAGG social token is built on the SWAGG network and is used to participate in the SWAGG community. SWAGG is focused on collaboration, authenticity, and creativity and the social token is the currency used across the network for product drops, rewards, and community-based projects. Holders of the social token get immediate access to SWAGG House and are able to redeem tokens against creations made by the community or use SWAGG to provide liquidity on the Uniswap exchange.
Whale
$Whale was launched in 2020 and is relatively unique among social tokens in that it is pegged to The Vault space which is valued at $115m and backed by a broad collection of NFT digital art pieces. There will only ever be 10 million available Whale tokens so the price may fluctuate both up and downwards depending on the popularity and success of the Whale social project.
Owners of Whale tokens are able to rent rare NFTs from The Vault, purchase exclusive NFT launches from creators within the community, participate in Whale liquidity mining, purchase both physical and digital merchandise, vote and participate in the Whale DAO and purchase rare NFTs from The Vault.
Mork
Mork is the social token of the art collective/duo Hackatao and was created to help distribute value to the art collection community who buy, trade, and discuss digital NFTs and art. Hackatao are artists S & N who create “Podmorks,” mini 3D creatures that have become increasingly popular as NFTs.
What are Social Tokens built on?
Social tokens are not like individual cryptocurrencies and this is an important distinction to make. Where a digital currency like Ethereum has its own underlying blockchain network, social tokens like Rally are more usually built on the back of other blockchain networks. This helps give them more legitimacy, flexibility, and security. Generally, Ethereum is a good choice for social tokens due to its relatively low cost for transactions, high speed, and reliability however there are social tokens built on other networks and some social tokens have set up their own distinct networks too.
