Social tokens are one of many layers of the metaverse (something I wrote about only recently).
Some argue that a blockchain-domiciled structure could be a better system, with both creators and consumers taking a bigger slice of the pie than the current system dominated by big players like Meta, TikTok and so on.
P00LS is one platform hoping that Web3 disrupts the space. They have a platform which allows creators and brands to launch their own social tokens and distribute them to their communities, becoming currencies for each respective ecosystem.
Today we interview Hugo Renaudin, founder of P00LS, asking some questions that arise from the ambitious project, as well as asking about their newly launched Creator World and token.
(CoinJournal) CJ: Creator Worlds seems like an interesting concept. What is your plan to attract users to it, instead of the competitors which exist in the space with similar protocols?
I think the key here is that we build for fans and not for speculators, whereas the previous generation of fan token platforms was pretty much targeting crypto traders and speculators. What this means is that we focus on creating experiences for people to earn (vs buy) and use (vs sell) the social tokens of their favorite creators in order to access meaningful experiences and interactions. When you think about Creator Worlds, this is where this community-to-creator interaction happens, and where people can easily use their social tokens to get utility. This is the center of the fan to creator relationship, where a social token allows you to unlock levels of participation and involvement of a community that you don’t see in similar fan token protocols, or even with web2 social media platforms.
CJ: With a lot of the social media and content creation side of the Internet controlled by big companies (TikTok, Meta etc), do you think their influence and network effects could translate over in future to the web3 space? For example, what would stop Meta launching a centralised version of something like Creator Worlds?
You’re right, legacy web2 platforms have a competitive edge because they already have mass audiences and a user base. Some have made super successful pushes to web3 just like Reddit – which has created millions of wallets for its users.
That said, for Meta and Tiktok to create social tokens would go completely against their current model. When you think about what a social token can do, it’s an amazing way to know and directly interact with a community of fans. If you launch a social token and distribute it to your fans, you know who your most engaged fans are (they have a lot of tokens) and you can interact with them directly (through P00LS worlds, or a token-gated Discord channel for instance). On the other hand, Meta’s and Tiktok’s business model is to make creators and brands pay for this information.
The interesting thing is that we can actually use Meta and Tiktok to create value and meaningful interactions for social tokens. We can use these platforms to deliver content directly to social token holders. For instance we just launched a private Instagram account for one of our creators Hugo Comte which is only accessible by holding some of his social tokens.
CJ: Is it difficult launching the zerozero DEX , with regards to attracting liquidity at the start?
We’re actually kind of happy to launch our DEX with low liquidity! The way we envision a healthy life cycle for a social token is to at first launch with zero liquidity and make it only earnable by a community through engagement and iteration, then gradually introduce more and more liquidity.
We’re at the early stages right now, so we don’t need too much liquidity as fans can always earn their social tokens. Our bet is that as those communities grow, so will the demand which will naturally drive liquidity.
CJ: The P00LS token launched recently amid the bear market. How difficult has it been trying to build while the market has been crashing this year?
I think this is a much better time to launch than to have launch at the peak of the bull market and now have a token at a much lower price than launch price.
That said, I love to build in bear markets. People are way more focused on building vs speculating, and the people in the community are here for the long term, not just the short-term speculation.
CJ: Most social tokens are down 90%+. In previous bear markets, many low-liquidity coins fell so much that they never retook those highs – do you think we will see the same again here?
Again, the previous generation of social tokens was built for speculators and crypto traders and we are focusing on fans. This makes a massive difference: regardless of the token prices, there will always be fans earning tokens through engagement and using them to access utilities and experiences that allow them to be closer to their favorite creators.
That’s never going to change regardless of the token price, and that’s why we’re putting such an emphasis on the adoption of social tokens by real fans as opposed to speculators.
CJ: Did you ever consider operating without a native token? For example, did you consider using $ETH to trade against creator tokens, instead of the native P00Ls token?
No. From the very beginning we wanted to build a community, a collective future where we can make users and creators stakeholders of our protocol at the same level as our team or our investors. For this you need a token, otherwise we’re just another web2 company!