In this article for NFTexpress I will discuss how NFTs and SocialFi platforms are combining to generate new and more secure experiences compared to those already created on the web2.
SocialFI is the combination of social networking and decentralized finance. As a result, the ecosystem is constantly looking to create decentralized social networking applications.
The objective is to create solutions that constantly appear in the well-known web2 social networks, such as: inadequate data security, lack of privacy for users and constant censorship problems from the centralized entities that manage the social networks.
On the other hand, content creators do not own their work on web2 developed platforms and even monetization of their work is sometimes scarce. However, on the web3 the opportunities to monetize things directly are limitless and SocialFi can create profitable solutions for this.
This is where NFTs come into play and how this technology combined with SocialFi can put the power back in the hands of the creators. We will look at some examples of pioneers in SocialFi projects to understand how non-fungible tokens are positioned in their respective initiatives.
Torum: SocialFi Metaverse with NFT avatars
The SocialFi-oriented metaverse Torum oriented SocialFi builds an ecosystem in which crypto project teams meet with users and consists of two main components: an NFT marketplace and the Torum Finance.
Torum Finance, allows sending and receiving any kind of cryptographic gift thanks to the NFT market integrated in the platform. On the other hand, artists can use their profiles as showrooms to show their collections to the entire community that enters the metaverse and especially to their profile.
In addition, NFTs can be shared on social networks to generate greater exposure and generate different interactions with all types of users.
Another feature of Torum is that they contain programmable or dynamic NFTs, you can see what dNFTs are all about in the article I made a few days ago here.
Dynamic NFTs function as unique virtual identities. Torum, allows users to choose from various themes and rare components in order to customize avatars (change backgrounds, and choose different accessories). Finally, they have confirmed that in the future, more activities related to NFTs and the possibility to create increasingly rare non-fungible tokens will be possible. You can read Torum’s whitepaper here. link.
Subsocial: the opportunity to turn publications into NFTs for profit
Subsocial boasts in not being a social network itself, but presents itself as a platform for building social networks acting directly as the base layer. It uses the technology Substratetechnology, a project that allows the creation of flexible, open, interoperable blockchains to optimize any use case.
The decentralized social networks developed in Subsocial allow their users (content creators) to sell and rent their publications as NFTs. In the case of renting, the renter earns revenue when other users visit the content they rented, in this case, the owner still owns the NFT and receives royalties for these interactions on their content.This creates a new way to use NFT technology in a valuable way, especially if the non-fungible token receives a lot of traffic from views and interactions.
DeSo: the purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain for building decentralized social networks.
DeSois an open source blockchain that was developed with the scalability of social network-oriented applications in mind. With this project, you can create applications in which each profile has social tokens with the goal of earning profits from the NFTs minted by content creators.
Currently, more than 200 DApps are using the DeSo blockchain. Some of the best known are: BitClout, a SocialFi owned by its users. DiamondDeSo, a platform where creators meet their followers/fans and build communities where not only content is minted as NFTs, but it is possible to give away non-fungible token airdrops and create “social tokens” to gather more incentives. All projects created with DeSo technology are viewable hereDeSo technology allows you to visualize the data of each of the DApps with their respective statistics such as: value of their governance tokens, Market Cap and Supply, among other things.
Lens Protocol: a path of many social networks with NFTs
The Lens protocolprotocol, is one of the most recognized tools in the SocialFi ecosystem. It uses other applications for different social experiences that allow creators to directly own their content. Some of the features for SocialFi integrations that Lens enables are:
Profiles, publications and comments coined as NFTs.
Content creators can monetize their work simply by allowing others to collect it.
Users who follow an account receive a tracking NFT that content creators can use to add additional features to that person.
Followed NFTs work with DAO-related components to enable the creation of voting strategies.
For their part, developers take advantage of these features to create different types of social networks and enable the right connections for collaborations. Also, the curation of NFTs content is controlled by the users and not by the platforms.
Dozens of SocialFi DApps have already been created with the Lens protocol. One of the best known is Cliptoa project that allows video fans to create personalized NFTs of their favorite creators. Another DApp is Phavera SocialFi platform that allows content sharing and earning for it. In addition, a “Phaver Dao” was created that will share ownership of the network with the entire community.
Conclusions
NFTs oriented to SocialFi projects play vital roles in the creation and adoption of decentralized social networks. Also, it will be extremely important to change the paradigm of content creation, since, with this combined technology, it will be possible to monetize the development of topics of interest. At the same time, they solve the problems of web-based social networks2 such as data protection and creators’ ownership of their content and digital identities.
Digital identities brought to NFTs are already being created. Binance, for example, has already launched its token “Binance Account Bound“. A Soulbound NFT, where its main characteristics are: non-transferable, unique and bound for life to its owners. This will be vital for use in applications where proof of identity is most important. In the case of SocialFi platforms combined with NFTs, Soulbound tokens will undoubtedly be an effective tool to be part of social networks on the web3.
Written by Rodrigo Catalan (TW: @RodrigoCatalanB) for NFT Express.