Original source: Shenchao TechFlow
The crypto market has experienced the recent “Uptober"Since then, various tracks have shown signs of recovery.
The Bitcoin ecosystem leads the rally, and gaming projects are becoming active again... But SocialFi, once a smash hit, seems to have lost its glory in this wave:
FriendTechs product updates have been slow, and user growth and activity have stagnated; Star Arena, the imitation disk that stood out before, has also failed to recover after being stolen and the founder left.
In a favorable market environment, the social track has encountered a window period.
But we all know that cryptocurrencies follow the logic of sector rotation. When the bulls are on the rise, funds and attention will also look for the best returns and narratives; Socialfi, which is experiencing stagflation, if funds rotate back again, will there be new projects to take over?
Based on the principle of looking at the new rather than the old, which project can take on and ignite the new popularity after the tracks window period?
If you want to take over the baton, you must have different innovations in the same track. It is difficult for pure imitation disks to attract new attention.
Before, we wereFrom SixDegrees to FriendTech, Soulcials Web3 Social Fire MomentI introduced Soulcial, a new social project on Optimisum, and its products have won awards at multiple hackathons, which proves to a certain extent that the industry recognizes its innovation.
Recently, the V2 version of Soulcial was launched online, and the Pump Epoch activity was simultaneously launched, which has aroused a lot of discussion on social media.
Different from the pure share transactions of FriendTech (hereinafter referred to as FT) and StarArena, Soulcial introduces the Social Behavioral Traits Index (SBTI) and the new design of Pump Game:
The former is in the Social part, so that the social value and connection methods of followers no longer rely solely on traditional social media influence; the latter is in the Fi part, allowing participants to find new channels for obtaining benefits and rewards.
Within 2 days of the product being launched, 3,500 people have participated in the NFT mint. In this issue, we will start with Soulcial’s product design, economic mechanism and token value, and deeply explore its innovation on the social track, while also providing a reference for players who want to participate.
More dimensions, discover more valuable people
In the past, the popular FT and many imitation disks only considered the influence of Twitter accounts to measure the value of users. But not all valuable people have high social media followings.
The big names in on-chain interaction may be unknown, and NFT Degen may disdain to speak out, but those who contribute to the community and actively participate in governance may be active behind the scenes...
Therefore, Soulcial introduced"Social behavior trait indicators"(SBTI), trying to more completely explore the value of a Web3 user from multiple dimensions:
For example, Influence represents the influence in social media; Connection means the link size of the users n-degree connections within the product; Energy reflects the users participation in activities up and down the chain; Wisdom reflects whether they actively participate in community governance; Art It more directly shows the number of NFTs held by users, while Courage shows the frequency and scale of interactions on the chain...
The above 6 dimensions basically cover all aspects of behavior in the Web3 world, and also reflect the users unique on-chain personality.
At the same time, based on the personality judged by the above 6 dimensions, supplemented by AI co-creation, Soulcial will generate a unique Soulcast NFT for each participating user.
By quickly looking at the tags and corresponding dimensions of the NFT, you can quickly know the users personal characteristics, which also means that you can quickly discover his useful to you social value.
What’s more interesting is that the system will also recommend other users who are similar to you in 6 dimensions based on personality and behavioral traits, and show the degree of matching. In addition, you can also take the initiative to use the connect function to establish connections with fellow fans.
By adopting a light social approach, users can also accumulate the network value of the social graph during the connect process and find more like-minded people.
After purchasing other users NFTs, you can unlock the ability to chat one-on-one with them, further deepening your connection. At the same time, if you participate in purchasing NFT but fail to purchase it successfully, you can also enter the group created by the NFT user and become a group member.
The relevant rules and processes for purchasing NFTs also constitute Soulcial’s unique asset pricing method. We will introduce them in detail in the economic section below and will not describe them in too much here.
In addition to the introduction of more evaluation dimensions, Soulcial has also made great efforts to lower the threshold for use.
Whether you are using a computer or mobile phone browser, or a PWA (Progressive Web App, progressive application) model similar to FT, you can log in conveniently.
On this basis, Soulcial has introduced a social login method from the beginning, allowing users to use familiar Web2 accounts for access, and has a built-in deposit solution, eliminating the embarrassment of no gas fees for novice users in the first step of participating, making the product Easier to spread and get out of the circle.
Obviously, Soulcial has its own characteristics, from the core design of the product to the relevant details.
But in addition to product functions, the topic we are more interested in is whether its economic part also has innovations that are clearly different from competing products?
Pump Game, a new differentiated asset pricing model
Evaluating and discovering a users social value through more dimensions is essentially pricing human assets.
And all pricing will ultimately be implemented on user participation.
Users who want to participate in Soulcial are more concerned about how to get benefits from it? Furthermore, is the economic gameplay attractive and can it continue to generate profits?
To clarify these issues, we must have a deep understanding of Soulcials core asset trading mechanism.
Different from the simple Bonding Curve model of many imitation disks such as FriendTech, Soulcial adopts“Equal price auction + liquidity incentive + bonding curve”The combined approach has made obvious innovations in terms of asset appreciation and ways to attract user participation.
We can dismantle it to understand the gameplay and rules more clearly.
1. Transaction process: Pump Game under equal price bidding rules
The first is equal-price bidding, which corresponds to the NFT transaction process in Soulcial products, which is the Pump Game we see on the product page:
Initial pricing:The users Soulcast NFT will have different levels according to the systems six-dimensional score, and an initial price will be calculated based on the level data;
Price discovery:If you think the user is valuable, the NFT has appreciation potential, or you want to unlock the right to talk to the user, you need a group of 4 people to participate in a Pump Game --- 4 people all quote the same purchase price and start a round of waiting price bidding"。
Result and ruling:A random number will be generated on the chain, and only 1 out of 4 people will be lucky enough to win and successfully buy the users NFT.
next round:Successful bidders in this round can choose to hold NFT, or they can start the next round of equal-price bidding process. It is also a pump game where 1 out of 4 has a chance of winning, but the NFT itself will appreciate in subsequent rounds.
It should be noted that if you already hold NFT, you can get system vSOUL point rewards by participating in the Pump game, and different levels of NFT correspond to different reward bonus coefficients.
vSOUL can be exchanged for the project’s token SOUL. We will introduce the specific rules in detail in the economic section later.
2. NFT asset price changes: Bonding Curve creates rising fomo effect
In the above bidding process, why will the value of NFT increase in the next round of Pump Game? The answer lies in the design of Bonding Curve.
Similar to other social products, the function of Bonding Curve is to control the price of social assets through some kind of variable. But the special thing about Soulcial is that the price of NFT controlled by Bonding Curve will only rise, not fall.
This is why the bidding process is called the Pump Game---each round of users price discovery of NFT will increase its price; and multiple rounds of increases will attract the attention of others, thereby expanding the NFT of a certain user influence and allow more people to participate in the bidding process.
So, how exactly does Bonding Curve raise prices?
In the current version of Soulcial, the price increase of NFT after each round of bidding is 10%. According to the project party, it will be upgraded to a dynamic price increase mechanism in the future, which can automatically determine the price increase based on the market supply and demand curve, but the minimum will not be less than 10%.
This also means that if you participate in the Pump Game currently, NFT will have a 10% price increase after each round; and if there is a subsequent dynamic adjustment, what we can foresee is:
Among NFTs of the same level, the more people who have participated in the pump game (the more they want to buy) and the fewer people who have placed orders (the less they want to sell), the higher the price increase will be, that is, follow the market trend.The increase is determined by supply and demand, but there is no decrease.
If it is still difficult to understand, we might as well make an assumption that in the case of a 10% increase, the initial price of a users own NFT is 0.01 e.
Through calculation, it can be seen that in only 30 rounds of equal-price bidding, the price of the NFT can reach around 0.16 e, which is 16 times higher than the initial price; and considering that each round requires 4 players to participate, without considering the participation of the same person In this case, it only takes 120 people in 30 rounds to increase the price of NFT.
Of course, the above calculation is only an ideal state, and the actual situation may be more complicated.
However, we can clearly see a fomo effect from the design of Bonding Curve: since a round of pump game requires very little liquidity (4 people), early participants can conduct price discovery earlier and quickly participate in bidding to push up the NFT. s price. The earlier you get involved, the lower the cost and the fewer competitors you may have.
3. Income distribution: social version of liquidity mining to encourage communication and expand scale
After reading this, you may be confused. If only 1 of the 4 people bidding at equal prices in each round can win and buy NFT, then why do the other 3 people rush to accompany you? What incentive do they have to participate in a game of chance where the expectation of winning is only 25%?
Don’t forget that equal price bidding means that different people provide the same amount of ETH to participate in the auction, which is essentially providing liquidity. If you fail to win, the ETH you provided will be returned in equal amounts, and on this basis, the system will also compensate you with an additional 4% of the NFT auction transaction price as a reward for providing liquidity.
This means that in an NFT transaction, even if the bidding is not successful, the other three people can get 4% of the transaction price as a commission, and they can all return the bidding principal;
At the same time, this also means that choosing to participate in the Pump Game in the early stages and discovering more valuable NFTs has become a business that is sure to make money without losing money. Once you participate in the auction, it actually becomes another social version of Liquidity mining”：
Your participation plays a positive role in price discovery and also promotes the completion of NFT transactions. In return, the system will definitely replenish you with commissions, just as LPs participating in market making in Defi will receive benefits.
But unlike Defi, when market making continues in Soulcial, the APY of liquidity mining will not decrease. Instead, as the transaction price of NFT becomes higher, the commission will become higher (4% remains unchanged, but the NFT The transaction price becomes higher);
However, the later the round, the more difficult it is to participate, because NFT will be discovered by the price as it rises. The later the round is, the greater the market-making competition will be, and the number of competitors competing for the 4-person pit will also increase significantly.
It is clear that the system encourages early participation, the greater the possibility of reaping benefits from it.
Finally, we can summarize Soulcial’s overall revenue distribution method: of the NFT transaction price, 12% (4% * 3) is given to the other 3 people who did not bid successfully, 4% is given to the NFT generator, and the platform charges 4% from it. fee, totaling 20%.
And based on Equal price auction + liquidity incentive + bonding curveComprehensive design, we can summarize Soulcials asset pricing model as follows:
Avoid direct competition, differentiated design: It is neither the mini-avatar NFT order book model where every purchase and sale requires a rival order book, nor is it the FT pure Bonding Curve model of unopposed orders that determine the rise and fall through shares. Very few people provide liquidity. In a stable state, it can ensure the continuity of the price curve and the users loss-free trading;
Users gain profits in the process of making markets for other peoples social asset prices, thereby encouraging the continuous expansion of the Soulcial social network;
There is an obvious Ponzi structure in the design, which is easy to spread and spread early and quickly; however, this kind of Ponzi is not a simple zero-sum game. Other participants also benefit from the continuous market making process, and each participant is rewarded for his unique role and contribution.
NFT prices will not fall, and price discovery for high-quality users is more direct:
Under the FT model, if capable and high-quality people want to cash in, there is only one way, which is to operate and expand the basic base of their social media influence. But not everyone has the energy, ability and willingness to run social media accounts.
Soulcials price discovery mechanism gives high-quality people other ways to quantify their own value, and then convert it into the possibility of selling products.
From points to SOUL tokens, users and projects have a shared destiny
From the generation of Soulcast NFT to the Pump Game mode, we can intuitively discover the current income. But a model that only values immediate benefits cannot go far in the crypto world.
If there is no long-term value and planning to support it, the other side of the rush may be to disperse in a rush.
Therefore, Soulcial also provides participants with a way to obtain long-term value in the process of price discovery and participation in asset transactions.
As can be seen from the current product page, in addition to the assets in the users wallet and collected NFTs, users can also obtain project points vSOUL, and the acquisition method permeates every step of user participation:
Use the invitation code to invite others to register and you can get
Invite others to participate in the Pump Game and you can earn points;
You can also earn points by participating in Pump yourself;
The winner of the Pump Game can obtain more points than the non-winner, and the number of points obtained varies according to the number of NFTs he holds.
It should be noted that if you want to participate in the Pump Game to earn points, you must hold at least one NFT.
This also means that users need to make their own decisions, whether to sell NFT immediately to earn income, or choose to hold NFT to participate in more rounds of equal-price auctions to earn points and gain long-term benefits.
According to the current rules announced by Soulcial, vSOUL points can be converted into the project’s SOUL tokens.
Since SOUL will be airdropped to all users in full according to different seasons without any reservations or early rounds, the value of this fair launch token depends entirely on the users consensus and participation in the project.
However, the proportion of SOUL tokens that can be exchanged for vSOUL will decrease over time, which means that early participating users will receive higher returns; at the same time, from the perspective of project dissemination, early expected returns can also stimulate the launch and expansion of social networks;
From a long-term perspective, 100% fair launch actually turns the project into a full-shareholding model.
The development of Soulcial and the value of SOUL tokens depend on the activeness and participation of all users, which is essentially a community with bound interests. To seek benefits, you must participate in the project earlier and more actively, and increase the projects reputation while gaining value.
Asset first, Soulcial will rely on long-term operations
Taken together, the author believes that the advantages of Soulcial are:
The unique economic model is very helpful for rapid early expansion and creating enthusiasm;
Differentiated asset pricing models avoid becoming pure imitations
There is a window period in the social track, and it may become a flashpoint when funds pick up.
But at the same time, we also need to maintain a skeptical spirit and look at the following matters objectively:
Can the value of Soulcast NFTs be sustained in the long term?
FriendTech’s experience and lessons have come first, focusing on models and neglecting operations. The products and operating models have not changed much, and they have not been able to unlock more gameplay, give more rights and value to the assets;
Whether Soulcial can empower NFT in the future, provide more value such as assembly props in the social metaverse, enjoy the long-term dividends of the project, and deepen the long-term operation may determine the fate of the project.
Anti-bot mechanism
Due to the early-come-early-earn model, it is necessary to consider the issue of preventing robots from playing the Pump Game; this may cause real users to have no chance to participate in benefit sharing, thereby damaging the entire ecosystem and activity.
Is there more value in unlocking chat features?
If the first person to buy an NFT and the last person to buy an NFT both get the opportunity to chat one-on-one with each other, but the content of the chat is the same, will the latter be willing to pay a higher price to unlock the same features?
Therefore, in terms of the functions and permissions corresponding to NFT, you may wish to observe the subsequent design and changes of the project.
In the end, industry is better than hard work and play is waste. Social networking is a track that focuses on continuous operations and daily work. The hard operation of the project and the unlocking of more valuable gameplay will affect the pace of development and success or failure.
Similarly, for users, Web3 always comes first with assets rather than completeness. Diligently researching projects and choosing the right time to experience them is the best way to gain value.
