GM Anon! This post will discuss the concept of social tokens associated with communities/creators in Web 3.0, explore some of the innovative ways in which they've been utilized thus far, and attempt to diagnose the low rate of adoption they've had thus far, despite their immense potential to catalyze millions, if not billions of new participants in the Web 3.0 space. Secondarily, it will introduce the experimental $DOWN Vault token; a new approach to social token deployment and value retention (and appreciation), created by BruceTheGoose, one of the earliest creators to deploy a personal social token via the Roll platform, early in 2020.
Contents:
1. What are social tokens?
1a. Social Tokens v. SocialFi
2. Social Token Spotlight
3. The Unrealized Potential
4. The Shortcomings So Far
5. $DOWN Vault Token
6. The Future of Social Tokens
What are social tokens?
Throughout this post, the use of the term 'social tokens' refers to personal/community branded tokens, though SocialFi platforms with native tokens integrated sometimes also have their utility/governance tokens referred to in the same way.
Social tokens are a nascent and under-appreciated sector of the Web 3.0 ecosystem. A short explanation that can be understood by Web 3.0 veterans as well as no-coiners would be something in the range of "social tokens can be likened to brand loyalty or rewards points; with the key differences being that they can be bought, sold, and traded on peer-to-peer networks that exist in an open market, and are most often associated with a creator or a community that participate or exist exclusively in the blockchain industry". For those of us who aren't strangers to the complexities that this simple explanation implies; social tokens are (most often) ERC-20 tokens issued by and/or associated with a creator, community, or organization as a means of rewarding, incentivizing, and monetizing their community, their content, or their creative endeavors. Beyond this common factor, each token is unique in terms of valuation, utility, and
