Inventory of 42 projects in the SocialFi track: Social, Ecology, DAO, and Governance Tools

Author: Blocklike

Source: Huoxing Finance

Blockchain + social is an interesting track that always attracts developers to keep trying.

As one of the hot tracks in the industry, the social token ecosystem is continuously developing and growing. After 2020, with the advent of the DeFi era and the influence of open finance concepts and liquidity mining methods, SocialFi began its transition from "Social + Finance" to "Social + DeFi."

After the arrival of the DeFi era, NFTFi and GameFi have successively exploded, and SocialFi has been given high hopes by the community. In fact, in the first half of 2021, many new projects with SocialFi concepts are joining this track.

Currently, this track is still in its early development stage, with most ecosystem participants based on social tokens (Social Tokens) engaging in concept divergence and technological updates. In most data statistics platforms, there are still relatively few platforms that specifically categorize the SocialFi concept, and some projects often intersect with concepts like NFT and GameFi. On the Coingecko platform, a total of 33 social tokens are categorized under the clearer term "Social Money"; on the Zerion platform, 18 social tokens are included under the classification of Social Token.

Blocklike has compiled information from multiple public channels to sort out the main participants in the existing SocialFi ecosystem and showcase the latest landscape of the social token ecosystem.

Definitions and Classification Methods

The organization of SocialFi track projects is based on the following definitions and classifications:

Social tokens (Social Tokens) are defined as "tokens supported by individual reputation, brand, or community," social tokens are built on the premise that community value will continuously increase. Among them, minting and distribution, as well as content capitalization, are relatively mainstream project concepts.

Social projects manage the communities they create through issuing tokens, allowing them to categorize users based on their activity and contributions within the community and enjoy tokenized rights to increase earnings for creators, cultural producers, and related participants. Currently, many tools can support this.

Most social tokens are based on ERC-20 and mainly extend technology and innovate projects from four main directions: distribution models, asset storage, token models, and community management.

Functionally, they can be categorized into personal tokens, community tokens, and social platform tokens. In finer classifications, social platform tokens tend to emphasize value circulation generated within the platform, while social tokens emphasize the services and value provided by individuals. DAO organizations, liquidity mining, and other methods have also promoted the development of community tokens, with many projects intersecting with other concepts.

Currently, the existing social token distribution involves personal financing, private communities, fan economies, platform subscriptions, sports entertainment, personal funds, community brands, and more.

Overview of the SocialFi Ecosystem

Personal Tokens

RAC (https://rac.fm/)

RAC is a fan token launched by Grammy Award-winning DJ RAC (André Allen Anjos) based on Ethereum. Holding this token allows users to enter an exclusive Discord channel and have the opportunity to receive airdrops early and access unreleased content. Additionally, holders of a certain amount of RAC can participate in exclusive product launches held by RAC in digital product trading markets like Zora or SuperRare.

ROLL (Creator Token) (https://tryroll.com/)

Roll is one of the established social token issuance platforms. Under this platform's issuance model, Roll creates ERC-20 tokens on behalf of users, issuing personal social tokens for content creators, with each personal social token having a total supply of 10 million, of which 2 million are directly distributed to content creators, 1.2 million belong to the Roll platform, and the remaining portion will be unlocked linearly over three years. At the same time, ROLL also provides storage and trading platforms.

Currently, 200 content creators have issued their social tokens through ROLL. However, in the first half of this year, the Roll platform was hacked, resulting in the theft of 3,000 ETH, which sparked discussions and significantly dampened the market's enthusiasm for social tokens.

Whale (https://whale.me/)

Whale is a well-known personal token issued by individual buyer WhaleShark on the Roll platform. Its token value is based on the NFT assets held by WhaleShark, and the valuation can be checked on NonFungible.com. Whale allocates 50,000 tokens monthly for acquiring NFTs, donating to artists, team salaries, community activities, etc., and records these activities through Discord, one of the mainstream social platforms overseas.

Additionally, creators can earn WHALE by staking their created NFT works and can also sell their works at a price marked in Whale on Opensea.

RALLY (Creator Token) (https://www.rally.io/creator/)

RALLY, one of the early well-known social token issuance platforms, features the ability to combine its native governance token RLY with creators' social tokens to mint new personal tokens, with the conversion of personal tokens requiring RLY. The platform covers the entire process of issuance, channels, deposits, and trading, and Rally uses Layer2 solutions to optimize mechanisms like instant trading. Token holders have governance rights over the Rally Network.

Currently, RLY can be used for liquidity mining on Uniswap and Balancer.

MeTokens (all.me)

The personal token issuance platform MeTokens, also known as "Stake on Me," allows users to create their own meToken or purchase others' meTokens, based on the idea of "investing in an individual's future and benefiting from their appreciation." On this platform, personal tokens can be exchanged by staking tokens (like ETH), and the total supply of an individual's MeTokens is fixed to the amount of staked tokens reserved, ensuring that personal tokens can always be redeemed for a portion of the staked tokens.

MeTokens has completed pre-seed round financing this year and has launched an app version.

MintGate (https://www.mintgate.io/)

MintGate is an ERC20 personal token issuance platform, where most personal token issuers distribute tokens to their fan base via Twitter, serving as access tokens for related communities. Fans holding a specified number of tokens can access different service experiences.

MintGate-related content can be hosted on Filecoin. It is also collaborating with Matic Network.

ALEX

ALEX may be one of the earliest explorations of social tokens. Founder Alex Masmej issued this token to raise enough funds to move to San Francisco to continue working in the crypto field, raising $20,000 from the "first ALEX issuance." This method was unprecedented at the time.

Community Tokens

1) Financialization of Community Content

Mirror (https://mirror.xyz/)

Mirror approaches from the angle of content financialization, providing a platform that gives each article "NFT + governance" attributes, allowing these contents to be invested in, traded, and governed. Creators who meet the requirements can initiate crowdfunding under their articles, and users participating in the crowdfunding can obtain NFT share tokens, with each transaction of the "article NFT" linked to dividends for investors. Additionally, the invite token "WRITE" is used to create columns, and holders enjoy voting rights. Under certain preset conditions on some platforms, "WRITE" can also serve as a form of access credential.

The NFT token minting on Mirror is completed using the Zora platform. Since the platform's founder is Denis Nazarov, a former partner at a16z crypto, it has always received significant attention in the social token space.

Cent (https://v.cent.co/)

v.cent.co is a celebrity social platform that turns celebrities' tweets into NFTs and then auctions them off. In transactions, 95% goes to the original tweet creator, and 5% goes to the platform; in secondary sales, 87.5% goes to the seller, 10% to the creator, and 2.5% to the platform.

Yup (https://yup.io/)

Yup is a protocol that tracks social activities and behaviors, tokenizing the influence of actions like likes and comments on content quality. On the platform, each user and content address (URL link) corresponds to a certain influence score, and the platform rewards more socially valuable content based on user interactions like likes and comments, allowing content producers and intermediaries to earn assets.

Matataki (https://www.matataki.io/)

Matataki (based on Meta Network) is a social token issuance and content platform priced in RMB. Fans can use the Matataki platform to purchase personal tokens to unlock articles and other features. The platform is supported by the META coin, which is also the governance token of the platform and can be used for staking.

The platform supports NFT sales and allows creators to airdrop social tokens to their fans.

SWAGG (https://swagg.network/)

SWAGG is a diversified social website centered around the SWAGG community. The founder seems to be conducting a "social experiment," and SWAGG has various uses; token holders can participate in the entire ecosystem built around SWAGG tokens. This includes acquiring artworks within the SWAGG network, receiving airdrop rewards before public sales, funding community-initiated projects, sharing valuable content for rewards, redeeming tokens for community creations, and proposing suggestions and voting for the SWAGG community.

2) SocialToken + DAO Organizations

Karma DAO (https://twitter.com/karma_dao)

Karma DAO is a very typical DAO community, originating from a social experiment among crypto enthusiasts. It aims to create a community that shares investment insights, provides advice and suggestions, leads the community, helps projects raise funds, and hosts virtual meetings. The main value content of the community lies in information and insights.

Karma DAO has three interaction methods: members hold tokens, peer-to-peer tipping, and wearable NFTs. In this community, members must hold 200 $KARMA to enter private group chats.

Friends with Benefits (https://www.fwb.help/join)

FWB is a private social platform based on a private Discord server, gathering a group of creators and thinkers in the crypto field. Participants need to hold a certain amount of the native token $FWB to join this social circle. $FWB has a constant supply of 1 million.

Ark (https://ark.gallery/)

Ark is an investment-oriented DAO organization where members can create an "ARK" to gather other members to jointly purchase specific Cryptopunks; they can also participate in an ARK to gain shares of collectively purchased Cryptopunks.

Seed Club (https://twitter.com/seedclubhq)

Seed Club is an incubator for social tokens, aiming to clarify the value of social tokens by collaborating with creators and helping establish templates for social tokens. The organization regularly publishes a list of creators participating in projects and provides financing and support.

Forefront (https://forefront.market/)

Forefront (FF) is a DAO-based aggregator focusing on topics like social tokens, NFTs, and DAOs. Within the community, Forefront distributes tokens to members who complete tasks representing the community. These tasks can vary widely, including promoting blog articles, designing POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) badges for events, or building a Discord bot.

Flamingo (https://flamingodao.xyz/)

Flamingo is a DAO organization focused on investing in crypto art, where members have the right to collectively decide which NFT artworks to purchase and can split, lend, mortgage, and curate the NFTs purchased by the DAO.

Becoming a Flamingo DAO member has certain threshold requirements, including donating some ETH as a membership condition, and the maximum number of members is capped at 100.

Social Platform Tokens

1) Minting/Distribution Platforms

Chilliz (https://www.chiliz.com/)

Chilliz is a typical social token under the "fan economy," primarily targeting the sports industry. CHZ is the native token of Socios, a fan incentive platform based on blockchain technology. Socios currently collaborates with 48 clubs or partners, including AC Milan, Manchester City, Arsenal, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, and Juventus, to issue fan tokens. Users on Socios.com can purchase club fan tokens by holding Chiliz. Holding fan tokens grants community voting rights, decision-making rights, and other privileges.

In this community, fans holding fan tokens can vote on matters such as the club's jersey color, stadium music and logo, friendly matches, charity lineups, entrance songs, etc., and the voting results are binding. This enhances user community participation.

Zora (https://zora.co/)

Zora defines its protocol as "a universal market protocol for media ownership." On this platform, artists, writers, or music creators can issue their tokens. Zora is also a co-issuer of the RAC community token.

Currently, Zora has created a social media client, and the platform's attributes lean more towards NFT minting.

CircleUBI (https://www.joincircles.net/)

Circles can issue personal tokens belonging to users, establishing a social network based on personal tokens and social trust. Here, mutually trusting parties with aligned supply and demand can conduct personal token-based transactions to obtain services from individuals. The CircleUBI concept focuses more on social aspects rather than UBI.

The project's founder and developer, Martin, is also one of the individuals who proposed the AMM mechanism for Uniswap, giving the project an inherent halo. By the end of 2020, many users promoted their QR codes in the community, hoping to gain others' Trust, allowing CircleUBI to acquire early user traffic. Official information indicates that user numbers exceeded 300,000 in the first half of this year.

Loopss (https://www.loopss.me/#/)

Loopss is an infrastructure project for programmable social relationship networks, deriving different application scenarios. The project originated from the DoraHacks DeFi Hackathon and is built on BSC. The most basic function of Loopss is: based on streaming payment technology, individuals can issue their personal credit currencies, with the value of credit coins derived from personal credit, and transactions relying on mutual "trust," regulated by "exchange rates" and "trust levels." The project logic is somewhat similar to CircleUBI.

Using LOOP allows for the establishment of verifiable social relationships on the blockchain, enabling token distribution, governance, and permissions based on social relationships, ultimately evolving towards community capital and DAOs.

Fyooz (https://www.fyooz.io/)

Fyooz is a social token issuance platform that assists influential individuals in issuing personal tokens, referred to as "celebrity tokens." Fyooz primarily collaborates with musicians, singers, athletes, or influential individuals. Holding Fyooz tokens often grants access to certain "fan privileges," such as unique opportunities to participate in events, gatherings, and discounts.

Currently, Fyooz mainly consists of three modules: trading market, internal community, and NFTs.

2) Decentralized Media Platforms/Applications

Bluesky (https://blueskyweb.org/)

The leading overseas social platform Twitter announced the launch of the Bluesky "decentralized social media project" as early as 2019, but it was delayed for various reasons. In August, Twitter CEO appointed former Zcash core developer Jay Graber to restart the project.

In a report written by Graber in January this year for the Bluesky project, key themes such as identity, networks, data, social, privacy, interoperability, scalability, applications, governance, and business models were analyzed both vertically and horizontally.

Currently, Graber is assembling the Bluesky team, and the "decentralized version of Twitter" still needs to wait.

BitClout (https://bitclout.com/)

The decentralized social platform BitClout aims to create a decentralized alternative to Twitter through proof of work and blockchain, benchmarking itself against Twitter. The platform has increased community speculation by passively issuing social tokens to Twitter KOLs, allowing individuals to own and trade their Creator Coins. Additionally, BitClout has a POW blockchain designed specifically for running social media and a built-in dedicated DEX.

In March of this year, the BitClout social media platform revealed a luxurious investment lineup, including Sequoia Capital, a16z, and Coinbase Ventures, amid rising industry buzz. Subsequently, as several Twitter celebrities "claimed" BitClout accounts, the wealth effect of BitClout increased, widening the gap with other blockchain social media projects.

Audius (https://audius.co/)

Audius is a decentralized music streaming protocol that allows token holders to directly relate to voting weight and value-added services through its native token AUDIO. Audius aims to bridge the gap between music creators and fans.

Notably, in August this year, Audius announced a partnership with short video platform TikTok, allowing musicians on the platform to directly upload and share their works to TikTok's Sound Kit, while musicians can also link their TikTok followers back to Audius.

Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/)

Mastodon is an open-source social service network software based on the ActivityPub protocol, launched as early as 2017, with a vision aimed at a decentralized Twitter. Through Mastodon sites, users can register, post messages, upload images, chat, similar to traditional social networks. However, if users want to install their own node, the steps are quite complex.

Its style resembles a decentralized remake of niche forums from earlier years, and it has launched an iOS version app, with the official announced registration number exceeding 4.4 million.

Nafter (https://nafter.io/)

Nafter is a social platform that NFT-izes short content. Similar to Instagram, creators can convert their posts into NFTs and profit from selling access to those posts. At the same time, users can stake the platform's native token NAFT or share in the earnings of the content creator by staking on their personal accounts.

Coinvise (https://www.coinvise.co/)

Coinvise is a social token issuance platform focused on APIs, allowing developers to integrate tokens into their existing platforms. On the Coinvise platform, creators or communities can mint social tokens and establish incentives on Ethereum and Polygon (Matic) networks, while creators can also use tokens for rewards, airdrops, crowdfunding, access control, and NFT applications.

Calaxy (https://www.calaxy.com/)

Calaxy is positioned as an open social marketplace, founded and incubated by Brooklyn Nets shooting guard, "Jump Shot Guy" Spencer Dinwiddie, who is also one of the most active athletes in the crypto field. A recent popular activity on Calaxy is related to sneaker NFTs.

Clarion

Clarion OS is in the early design stage, centered around a "friend-to-friend" message propagation protocol, supporting real-time video, chat, and other functions between encrypted identities. According to official information, Clarion builds different types of applications, including tokens and smart contracts, using Web Assembly plugins on Clarion OS. Clarion OS can be seen as Layer 0.

The project's focus is mainly on: this is the latest choice of former EOS founder BM after resigning from Block.one CTO and leaving the EOS community, and it is BM's third project in the social track.

Third Parties

Social tokens have strong social attributes and often require third-party tools for token distribution during project operations, which often intersect with tools used in other blockchain projects.

1) Middleware

Mask Network (https://mask.io/)

Mask Network is a unique "portal" that does not create a new platform but bridges Web2 and future Web3 concepts as a "plugin," allowing users to seamlessly send encrypted messages, cryptocurrencies, and even DApps (DeFi, NFTs, DAOs) on existing social networks without migration, thus creating a decentralized Applet (DApplet) ecosystem without using centralized servers.

Mask's distribution method allows ordinary users to further engage with crypto assets without changing their current mainstream social platform usage habits. At the same time, Mask is endowed with multiple attributes such as privacy social, decentralized storage, DeFi, and DAO.

2) Tools/Others

Collab.land (https://collab.land/)

Created by the Abridged.io team, it is a Discord and Telegram bot that creates chat groups with certain token holding conditions. Users joining the group will link their MetaMask wallet, and if they do not meet the required token standard, they will be kicked out of the group within a few minutes.

This tool also automatically pulls qualified users into the group and supports snapshot governance voting.

Snapshot (https://snapshot.org/#/)

A governance tool using off-chain signatures, centralized total vote upload results.

Tip.cc (https://tip.cc/)

A commonly used tipping bot on Telegram and Discord, which can be used to send tokens. This tool uses centralized servers, and tipping is free of charge and does not require gas fees, typically used for airdrops within chat software.

Communifty (https://communifty.org/)

Communifty (formerly DAOFi) is a dedicated DEX based on social tokens, built on the success of KarmaDAO. It aims to assist in token creation and bring early liquidity to the community.

Outpost (https://outpost-protocol.com/)

A subscription blog that accepts crypto tokens.

This platform offers a variety of personal tokens, with the most notable being the first relatively "out of the loop" social token JammSession (JAMM).

Kickback (https://xdai.kickback.events/)

Kickback is a community currency event management platform where users stake community currency to gain participation rights in events.

SourceCred (https://sourcecred.io/docs/beta/cred)

A tool for community data assessment and rewards. By calculating data such as posts, likes, and replies, the community can provide rewards based on member data, redeemable for social tokens.

Muzenetwork (https://muzenetwork.org/)

A platform for building and managing crypto communities based on BSC. It can assist users in establishing their own crypto communities.

Gnosis Safe (https://gnosis-safe.io/)

A multi-signature management tool and digital asset management platform, with most users coming from DAO organizations.

SuperFluid (https://www.superfluid.finance/home)

An on-chain streaming payment and fund management tool, suitable for DAO payments, recurring payments, frequent reward distributions, and other scenarios.