A New Andre Cronje Beta Project, a New Token That Pumps

Hello Defiers! Here’s what’s happening,

• Social token platforms are enlisting celebrities in the push for crypto mainstream adoption
• Sound familiar? A token linked with Andre Cronje is rallying
• Coinbase says it plans to roll out a crypto Visa debit card in the first half of 2021

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Social Token Projects Enlist Celebrities in Push for Adoption

By Cooper Turley

Social tokens are becoming a breeding ground for adoption, with major names in music and sports all trying their hands at the web3-native fan engagement mechanism.

Just this past week, social token platform Roll announced a partnership with Akon for the Grammy-nominated music producer to introduce personal tokens to his Akoin community, including in the city he’s launching in West Africa to help propel blockchain technology.

And Rally announced Brand Coin, a social token for brands, celebrities and influencers, with international soccer player Keisuke Honda as one of the first to try the new concept with KSK Honda Coin.

$250M of Social Tokens on Roll

There are now over 250 creators who have issued tokens through Roll with the total value of all social money on the platform recently surpassing $250M, 25 creators through Rally, and Grammy-winning musician RAC who is using Zora.

While not directly social tokens, music streaming platform Audius airdropped its governance token AUDIO to 10k of its most active users.

It’s these platforms’ big push for mainstream usage; a light-lift attempt to train fans on interacting with ERC20 tokens.

Token-Permissioned Access

Communities forming around these tokens are pushing the needle on what it means to share a common interest, whether it be through NFT farming like Coin’s E-Den, token-gated newsletters like JammSession, or special discount codes like $RAC.

Another example of token-gated communities is Friends with Benefits, created by Brud founder Trevor McFedries. Anyone with 50 FWB tokens is able to access the Discord channel, which McFedries is trying to turn into a foundation for high-quality discussion, starting with a concept called ‘rough drafts’ to encourage collaborative content among trusted individuals.

Those who author rough drafts will soon be able to redeem upvotes for FWB tokens, yet another extension of how social tokens can offer rewards with financial value for community engagement.

Tooling

In practice, one of the tools creators and issuers are using to achieve this is CollabLand, which enables token-permissioned channels and the ability to assign roles to those who hold specific tokens. CollabLand is now evolving to add tipping to meet the demands of its over 400k users across more than 300 groups.

While the degree of community governance varies among all social tokens, there’s a commonality of allowing the group’s supporters to influence - and often drive - the most important decisions.

New Audiences

It’s worth noting that those opting into social tokens are starting to experiment with other mediums like audio NFTs.

Following RAC’s record-breaking 70 ETH NFT sale ‘Elephant Dreams’ on SuperRare, producer 3LAU offered all-access passes as a kicker to his 33 ETH NFT sale ‘Star Crossed’, alongside popular musicians Boys Noize, oshi and Metsa joining the Audio NFT conversation.

Capturing Value

If one thing is for sure, social tokens are giving creators new ways to capture value. While it's still early, the inspiration around community ownership is one that speaks perfectly to the angles of DeFi that have driven the booming sector to where it is today.

Now, the question becomes - could social tokens become more successful than the financial applications we thought would bring about the next wave of users?

Andre Cronje’s New Project Isn’t Live But Token is Pumping

As has become all too common in DeFi, Yearn founder Andre Cronje is tinkering with a new project and speculators are rushing to buy its token —aka aping in— before it’s even live.

The project, called Keep3r Network, is a decentralized coordination ecosystem for projects to find developers that will work on their upkeep. “Projects wishing Keepers to perform duties simply need to submit their contract to Keep3r Network, once reviewed and approved by a bonded Keeper, Keepers can begin fulfilling the required work,” the post says.

Certain jobs may carry financial risk, as such, they may only be executed by Keepers that have a minimum financial bond. This bond is registered in the platform’s own KP3R token.

No Sale

“There is no raise, there is no sale, there is no distribution, the supply starts at 0, to earn these tokens you need to register as a Keeper and perform work,” Cronje wrote in a post last week, in a tone similar to the now-legendary YFI token distribution.

Today, Cronje wrote a simple tweet. “Keep3r Network v1 beta,” is all it said, and below it, a link a blog post announcing the network’s contracts had been released, together with instructions on how to become a Keeper and earn KP3R tokens.

He warned that while contracts “have been audited and reviewed, that does not mean that bugs can’t/won’t be present.”

In the short few hours since the post was published, the token soared from 0 to as high as just over $225 and is now trading at around $160.

Image source: dextools.io

I guess there’s really a lot of demand for developers to do project upkeep? It’s a good thing that just two weeks ago, Cronje clarified he doesn’t build for speculators.

Coinbase Launches Crypto Visa Debit Card in the US

Coinbase plans to offer a crypto Visa debit card that can be used for ATM withdrawals, and for online and in-store payments everywhere Visa is accepted. US customers can join the waitlist today, and the exchange operator plans to approve eligible applicants this winter. Coinbase is targetting for the card to be available in the first half of 2021.

While cardholders can spend any crypto on their accounts, Coinbase incentivizes use of its USDC stablecoin. There will be no fees when spending with USDC, compared with a 2.49% transaction fee on all purchases when spending other cryptocurrencies. There are no sign-up or annual membership fees for US customers.

The card will also be available in the UK and some EU countries, with limited features.

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About the founder and editor: Camila Russo is the author of The Infinite Machine, the first book on the history of Ethereum, and was previously a Bloomberg News markets reporter based in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires. She has extensively covered crypto and finance, and now is diving into DeFi, the intersection of the two.