Move over social media. Social money, which brings economics to a digital community, is going to be the next big thing in the virtual space in the coming decade, says Bradley Mines.
In a recent podcast interview, Mines who founded Ethereum-based protocol Roll that allows content creators to control their own platforms using crypto, said that social money would help individuals capitalise on the social network around them by creating their own currency. This, according to him, will, in turn, give people a stake in their community and create a deeper sense of belonging there.
“The idea is that every kind of individual has this (social) network around them and that network has this sort of almost intangible value,” explained Mines. “Ethereum uniquely allows you to turn this cultural primitive now into a digital and financial primitive. So, the network value you could effectively make that fungible and tradable.”
Mines said that he sees this really as a mass adoption primitive in the future, with many people having their own currencies. “We wanted to create a term that was super friendly, almost as friendly as ice cream to words, that people just like next to each other and this effectively became social money,” he said.
“And once you have your own money, you can create your own rules and become the network”
— Bradley Mines
Social Mounier-branded ethereum tokens are named after individuals and communities, analogous to an Amazon gift card, a kind of branded currency that can be used within that network.
Mines said that social money can be earned and redeemed (on the platform). “I mean first of all social money now becomes interoperable across systems, so there is social money on blockchain platforms and you can swap.”
The idea of creating the interoperable auditable system where the value could be integrated into different platforms is really special because all of a sudden you’re not just on the network, you become the network, he said. “And once you have your own money, you can create your own rules and become the network and it’s a very new value prop that we think is unique for this decade,” he said.
The best part of Roll, according to Mines, is that the social currencies on the platform are branded towards each particular issuer. And since each has its own token, when any given crypto-economy succeeds, the value is distributed among all holders in that particular network.
Roll, which was launched last year, currently offers about 160 social tokens, with each representing an artist or an entrepreneur.
