Socialstack Lands Funding to Build Global and Diverse Social Token Economies

By Stewart Rogers Stewart Rogers has been verified by Muck Rack's editorial team
Published on May 11, 2021

Socialstack, a social token protocol, has announced today that it has received $200k in funding to launch a new way for creators to interact with their community and fans. The protocol, which is on both Ethereum and Celo, was backed by the likes of Novum Insights, Aubrey Hruby, Decentranet, Adrianna Mendez, and Alan Laubsch.

Solutions like Socialstack aren’t new, of course. So why use the blockchain for this particular protocol rather than a more traditional approach?

“Blockchain provides a way to capture, control, and coordinate value independent of any individual platform making it censor-resistant, providing a unified premium member experience with your ETH address as a single sign-on to every community space, and shifting the paradigm of ownership from any given platform to the individuals in the community responsible for creating the value,” Andrew Berkowitz, CEO and cofounder at Socialstack, told me.

So how does it work, and how does someone create their currency?

“Currently, a creator or community leader applies to mint their social token on Socialstack at socialstack.co,” Berkowitz said. “We issued their token on the open Ethereum or Celo blockchain and provided the option of a managed treasury in the Socialstack Multisig Vault, or we send their token to an ETH/Celo address for them to manage. The whole process from the application submitted to token issuance is about 3 days.”

Creators can directly interface with their community and reward engagement with a social currency that community members can exchange for items that continue to fuel and foster connections, like concert t-shirts, exclusive talks, etc. The company says that it’s a flywheel for gratitude that builds on itself with creators, not third-party tools, determining the value that each creation and community action has.

Socialstack itself, of course, needs to make money, so how does that work?

“We charge 3% of the token supply for each token launching on the protocol as well as 5% for any NFT collectible sold through the platform,” Berkowitz said.

With the funding, Socialstack can now move forward with its plans to expand the solution.

“We plan to onboard 100 creators/communities and complete our full integration of the Celo blockchain in our noncustodial wallet by June,” Berkowitz said. “A roadmap for the open-source tooling that Socialstack will contribute to the social token space will be available by June 1st.”

The Ethereum ecosystem has pioneered the creation of the NFT and social token space over the past few years. Unfortunately, alongside the rise in ETH network activity, gas prices have made social tokens an unusable asset class for most of the world. Celo’s mobile-first, carbon-neutral, and minimal transaction fee approach makes it the ideal platform to make social tokens inclusive for emerging economies across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

The first creators launching as a part of the Socialstack community include Afrobytes, African Tech Roundup, and some of Africa’s leading digital artists, including Osinachi and Haneefah Adam, and the Pachamama Alliance, a nonprofit empowering indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve land & culture.

All creators and communities launching on Socialstack are required to take the Socialstack pledge, a commitment to allocating at least 70% of their token supply towards providing gratitude to their community in the form of tipping, grants, airdrops, and rewards for engagement.

Creators and communities can apply to join the Socialstack community and issue their Ethereum-based token through the platform. Accepted creators will have their token issued and immediately listed in the Socialstack wallet at socialstack.co. Over time, Socialstack will move its platform towards becoming a fully Decentralized Autonomous Organization powered by the Socialstack governance token. All creators launching on Socialstack will become a part of the Socialstack creator community, gaining weekly community calls and our creator partnership program.

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By Stewart Rogers Stewart Rogers has been verified by Muck Rack's editorial team

Journalist verified by Muck Rack verified

Stewart Rogers is a Senior Editor at Grit Daily. He has over 25 years of experience in sales, marketing, managing, and mentoring in tech. He is a journalist, author, and speaker on AI, AR/VR, blockchain, and other emerging technology industries. A former Analyst-at-large VentureBeat, Rogers keynotes on mental health in the tech industry around the world. Prior to VentureBeat, Rogers ran a number of successful software companies and held global roles in sales and marketing for businesses in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K.A digital nomad with no fixed abode, Rogers emcees major tech events online and across the globe and is a co-founder at Badass Empire, a startup that helps digital professionals tap into their inner badass, in addition to being Editor-in-Chief at Dataconomy, a publication and community focused on data science, AI, machine learning, and other related topics.

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