Are 'social tokens' the next big thing?

Social tokens - or tokens backed by the reputation of an individual, brand, or community - are gaining traction and some believe they could be the next big thing in the cryptocurrency community.

Social tokens are a little different to the slew of DeFi liquidity farming tokens that have appeared over the past couple of months.

Creators can monetize their work as an non-fungible token, or social token, and supporters can give something back to show their loyalty.

Influencers minting their own tokens to offer them as rewards, or sell them for additional revenue.

"Social tokens provide a means of not only sharing financial upside with their favorite creative but also enables tiered, tokenized access based on active contributions."

She has now created her own ERC-20 social token called TINGLE for her followers to buy in exchange for further interaction or purchasing merchandise.

Grammy award winning artist RAC, aka André Allen Anjos, has just announced a token created with Zora, a platform for artists, creators, and brands to craft their own markets.

The token will be distributed to subscribers of various associated platforms and used to unlock access to various perks and exclusive content.

A startup based in New York called Roll has taken things a step further by offering to mint Ethereum-based branded digital tokens, or "Social money", for influencers and creators.

There are around 160 social tokens currently offered on Roll and the number is growing as everyone from rappers to NBA stars to entrepreneurs experiment with this latest method of monetizing content and incentivizing community loyalty.