A Closer Look at Soulcial's Product Innovations: Social Behavior Trait Indicators and Pump Game

Original source: TechFlow

After the recent “Uptober” experience in the crypto market, there are signs of recovery on various tracks.

The BTC ecosystem is leading the rise, and game projects are starting to be active again… But SocialFi, which was once a smash hit, seems to be no longer in this wave:

FriendTech’s product updates have been slow, user growth and activity have stagnated, and Star Arena, a replica that has previously stood out, has also collapsed after the theft and the departure of its founder.

A favorable market environment, but the social track has encountered a window period.

But we all know that cryptocurrencies follow the logic of plate rotation. When the bull raises its head, money and attention will also look for the best returns and narratives, and Socialfi, which has experienced stagflation, will there be new projects to take over if the funds rotate back?

In line with the principle of looking at the new and not looking at the old, which project can undertake and detonate the new heat after the window period of the track?

If you want to take over the baton, in the same track, there must be different innovations. Pure imitation plates are difficult to attract new attention.

Previously, we covered Soulcial, a new social project on Optimisum in “From SixDegrees to FriendTech, Soulcial’s Web3 Social Ignite Moment”, which has won awards at multiple hackathons, which is partly a testament to the industry’s recognition of its innovation.

Recently, the V2 version of Soulcial was launched, and the Pump Epoch campaign was launched at the same time, which has caused a lot of discussion in social media.

Unlike FriendTech (FT) and StarArena’s share-only trading, Soulcial has introduced a new design for the Social Behavior Trait Indicator (SBTI) and Pump Game:

In the Social part, the former allows the social value and connection methods of the followers to no longer rely solely on the traditional social media influence, while the latter allows participants to find new channels for obtaining benefits and rewards in the Fi part.

Within 2 days of the product’s launch, 3, 500 people have participated in the NFT mint. In this issue, we will start with Soulcial’s product design, economic mechanism, and token value, and delve into its innovation on the social track, while also providing a reference for players who want to participate.

More dimensions, more valuable people to discover

In the past, the hot FT and a number of imitation disks mainly only considered the influence of the Twitter account to measure the value of users. But not all valuable people, social media attention is high.

On-chain interaction bigwigs may be obscure, NFT Degen may disdain to speak out, contribute to the community and actively participate in governance, may be active behind the scenes…

Therefore, Soulcial has introduced the “Social Behavior Trait Indicator” (SBTI) to try to explore the value of a Web3 user from multiple dimensions:

For example, Influence represents the influence in social media, Connection represents the size of the user’s network in the product, Energy reflects the user’s participation in on-chain and off-chain activities, Wisdom reflects whether the user actively participates in community governance, Art shows the number of NFTs held by the user more directly, and Courage shows the frequency and scale of on-chain interactions…

The above 6 dimensions basically cover all aspects of behavior in the Web3 world, and also reflect the user’s unique “on-chain personality”.

At the same time, based on the personality judged by the above 6 dimensions, supplemented by AI co-creation, Soulcial will generate a unique Soulcast NFT for each participating user.

By looking at the tags and corresponding dimensions of the NFT, you can quickly understand the user’s personal characteristics, which also means that you can quickly discover the social value of his “useful to you”.

What’s even more interesting is that based on personality and behavioral traits, the system will also recommend other users who are similar to your own 6D and show the degree of match. In addition, you can also actively use the conncect feature to connect with your peers.

By adopting a light social approach, users can also precipitate the network value of the social graph in the process of connecting, and find more like-minded people.

After purchasing another user’s NFT, you can unlock the ability to chat with them one-on-one and deepen the connection even further. At the same time, if you participate in the purchase of an NFT but fail to do so, you can also join the group created by the NFT user and become a member of the group.

The rules and process for purchasing NFTs also constitute Soulcial’s unique approach to asset pricing, which we will detail in the economics section below without going into too much detail here.

In addition to the introduction of more evaluation dimensions, Soulcial has also made efforts to lower the threshold for use.

Whether you’re using a browser on your computer or phone, or a PWA (Progressive Web App) like FT, you can easily log in.

On top of this, Soulcial has introduced a social login method from the beginning, allowing users to access using a familiar Web2 account, while having a built-in funding solution, eliminating the embarrassment of novice users participating in the first step without gas fees, making the product easier to spread and get out of the circle.

Obviously, from the core design of the product to the relevant details, Soulcial has its own characteristics.

But beyond the functionality of the product, the topic we are more interested in is whether its economic part also has innovations that are clearly different from those of the competition.

Pump Game, a new model for differentiated asset pricing

Evaluating and discovering a user’s social value through more dimensions is essentially pricing with human assets.

And all the pricing, in the end, has to be implemented on the participation of users.

When users want to participate in Soulcial, the question they are more concerned about is, how can they make money in it, and further, is the economic play attractive and can continue to generate revenue?

To understand these issues, it’s important to have a deep understanding of Soulcial’s core asset trading mechanism.

Different from the simple bonding curve model such as FriendTech, Soulcial adopts a combination of “equivalent auction + liquidity incentive + bonding curve”, and has made obvious innovations in the way of asset appreciation and attracting user participation.

We can break it down to get a clearer understanding of the gameplay and rules.

1. Transaction process: Pump Game under the equivalent auction rules

The first is the equivalent auction, which corresponds to the transaction process of the NFTs in Soulcial’s products, which is the Pump Game we see on the product page:

• **Initial pricing: According to the system evaluation, the user’s Soulcast NFT will have different levels of six-dimensional scores, and an initial price will be calculated based on the level data;

Price Discovery: If you believe that the user is valuable, that the NFT has the potential to appreciate, or that you want to unlock the right to talk to the user, you need to participate in a Pump Game in a group of 4 people— and all 4 people will quote the same purchase price to start an “equivalent auction”.

Result ruling: A random number will be generated on the chain, and only 1 out of 4 people will be lucky enough to win the lottery and successfully buy the user’s NFT. **Next Round:**Successful bidders in this round can choose to hold the NFT, or they can start the next round of the equivalent auction process, which is also a pump game with a chance of winning the lottery in 1 out of 4, but the NFT itself will appreciate in subsequent rounds.

It should be noted that if you already hold NFTs, you can get the system’s vSOUL points by participating in the Pump game, and different levels of NFTs correspond to different reward bonus coefficients.

vSOUL, on the other hand, can be exchanged for the project’s token SOUL, and the specific rules will be explained in detail in the economy section below.

2. NFT asset price changes: Bonding Curve creates a rising fomo effect

In the above auction process, why do NFTs increase in value in the next round of Pump Game? The answer lies in the design of the Bonding Curve.

Similar to other social products, Bonding Curve works by controlling the price of social assets through some kind of variable. But what’s special about Soulcial is that the price of NFTs, which Bonding Curve controls, will only go up, not down.

That’s why the auction process is called a "Pump Game— each round of user price discovery of an NFT will cause the price to rise, and multiple rounds of price increase will attract the attention of others, thereby expanding the influence of a user’s NFT and allowing more people to participate in the bidding process.

So, how exactly does Bonding Curve manage to raise prices?

In the current version of Soulcial, the price increase of NFTs after each round of bidding is 10%. According to the project party, it will be upgraded to a dynamic price increase mechanism in the future, which can automatically determine the price increase according to the market supply and demand curve, but the minimum will not be less than 10%.

This also means that if you participate in the Pump Game, there will be a 10% price increase after each round, and if the follow-up is a dynamic adjustment, we can foresee:

Among the NFTs of the same level, the more people who have participated in the pump game (the more they want to buy), the fewer orders they have placed (the less they want to sell), the higher the price will rise, that is, they will go with the market, ** according to supply and demand to determine the size of the increase, but there is no decline. **

If it’s still hard to understand, let’s assume that with a 10% increase, the initial price of a user’s own NFT is 0.01 e.

Through the calculation, it can be seen that the price of the NFT can come to about 0.16 e with only 30 rounds of equal bidding, which is 16 times higher than the initial price, and considering that each round requires 4 players to participate, only 120 people are needed in 30 rounds to increase the price of the NFT without considering the participation of the same person.

Of course, the above calculations are only an ideal state, and the actual situation may be more complicated.

However, from the design of the Bonding Curve, we can clearly see a fomo effect: since a round of pump game requires very little liquidity (4 people), early participants can conduct price discovery earlier, quickly participate in bidding, and push up the price of NFTs. The earlier you participate, the lower the cost and the fewer competitors you may have.

3. Income distribution: The social version of “liquidity mining” incentivizes dissemination and expands the scale

Reading this, you may be wondering, if only 1 out of 4 people in each round of equal bidding will be able to win the NFT lottery, then why will the other 3 people scramble to “run along”, and what incentive do they have to participate in a game of chance with only 25% expectation of winning?

Don’t forget that an equivalent auction means that different people offer the same amount of ETH to participate in the auction, essentially providing liquidity. If you fail to win, the ETH you provide will be returned in equal amounts, and on top of that, the system will also compensate you for another 4% of the NFT auction price as a reward for providing you with liquidity.

This means that in an NFT transaction, even if the bidding is not successful, the other 3 people can get 4% of the transaction price as a commission, and they can all return the bidding principal;

At the same time, this also means that choosing to participate in Pump Game in the early stage and discovering more valuable NFTs has become a surefire business. Once you participate in the auction, it actually becomes another social version of “liquidity mining”:

Your participation plays a positive role in price discovery, and at the same time, it also facilitates the conclusion of NFT transactions, and in return, the system will inevitably pay you commissions, just as LPs who participate in market making in Defi will receive income.

However, unlike Defi, in the case of continuous market making in Soulcial, the APY of liquidity mining will not decrease, but will increase as the transaction price of NFT becomes higher (4% remains unchanged, but the transaction price of NFT becomes higher);

However, the later the round, the more difficult it is to participate, because the NFT price is found to be high, and the further it goes, the greater the market-making competition it will face, and the number of competitors for the 4-person pit will also increase significantly.

Obviously, the system encourages early participation, and the more likely it is to reap the benefits.

Finally, we can summarize the overall revenue distribution method of Soulcial: 12% (4% * 3) of the NFT transaction price will be given to the other 3 people who have not successfully bidd, and 4% will be given to the NFT generator, from which the platform will charge 4% of the handling fee, a total of 20%.

Based on the comprehensive design of “Equivalent Auction + Liquidity Incentive + Bonding Curve”, we can summarize Soulcial’s asset pricing model as follows:

• Avoid direct competition and differentiated design: It is neither the order book model of small avatar NFT, which has a counterparty to buy and sell, nor the FT pure Bonding Curve model, which rises and falls through shares, and can ensure the continuity of the price curve and the user’s lossless transaction when a very small number of people provide liquidity;
• Users earn money in the process of making markets for other people’s social asset prices, which in turn encourages the continuous expansion of Soulcial’s social network;
• There is an obvious Ponzi structure in the design, which is easy to spread and spread quickly in the early stage, but this kind of Ponzi is not a simple zero-sum game, and other participants in the process of continuous market making also have benefits, rewarding the unique role and contribution of each participant
• The price of NFTs will not fall, and the price discovery for high-quality users is more straightforward:

Under the FT model, there is only one way for capable and high-quality people to monetize, and that is to operate and expand their social media influence. But not everyone has the energy, ability, and willingness to run a social media account.

Soulcial’s price discovery mechanism gives high-quality people other ways to quantify their value and then convert it into the possibility of selling products.

From points to SOUL tokens, a community of destiny between users and projects

From the generation of Soulcast NFTs to the Pump Game mode, we can intuitively discover the current income. But a model that only focuses on immediate interests will not go far in the crypto world.

If there is no long-term value and planning to support it, the other side of the rush may be scattered.

As a result, Soulcial also provides participants with access to long-term value in the process of price discovery and asset trading.

As can be seen from the current product page, in addition to the assets in the user’s wallet and the collected NFTs, users can also obtain the project’s points vSOUL, and the way to obtain it permeates every step of the user’s participation:

• You can use the invitation code to invite others to register
• Invite others to participate in Pump Game, you can earn points;
• If you participate in Pump, you can also earn points;
• The winner of the Pump Game can earn more points than the non-winner, and the number of points obtained is also different according to the amount of NFT they hold.

It should be noted that in order to participate in the Pump Game to earn points, the premise is to hold at least one NFT.

This also means that users need to make their own decisions about whether to sell NFTs instantly to earn yield, or choose to hold NFTs and earn points by participating in more rounds of equivalent auctions for long-term gain.

According to the current rules published by Soulcial, vSOUL points can be converted into SOUL tokens of the project.

Since SOUL will be airdropped to all users in full according to different seasons, without any reservations and early rounds, the value of this fair launch token depends entirely on the user’s consensus and participation in the project.

However, the proportion of SOUL tokens that can be exchanged for vSOUL will decrease over time, which means that the early participants will have higher returns, and from the perspective of project dissemination, the expected benefits in the early stage can also stimulate the launch and expansion of social networks.

From a long-term perspective, the 100% fair start actually turns the project into a full ownership model.

The quality of Soulcial’s development and the value of the SOUL token depend on whether all users are active and participatory, essentially making a community of interests bound. In order to seek revenue, it is necessary to participate in the project earlier and more actively, and at the same time obtain value, and expand the voice of the project.

Assets first, Soulcial will rely on long-term operations

Overall, the author believes that the advantages of Soulcial are:

• Unique economic model, which is beneficial for rapid expansion and manufacturing heat in the early stage;
• Differentiated asset pricing model to avoid being reduced to a pure imitation market
• During the window period of the social track, it may become a flashpoint when the capital recovers

But at the same time, we need to be skeptical and look at the following things objectively:

• Can the value of Soulcast NFTs last in the long term?

FriendTech’s lessons have not changed much, focusing on the model and ignoring the operation, and the product and operation model have not changed much, failing to unlock more ways to play, and give more value to the rights bound to the assets;

Whether Soulcial can empower NFTs in the future, provide more value such as assembly props in the social metaverse, enjoy long-term dividends in the follow-up of the project, and deepen the long-term operation may determine the fate of the project.

• Anti-bot mechanism

Due to the early-come-early-to-earn model, it is necessary to consider the problem of preventing bots from brushing Pump Game, which may cause real users to have no chance to participate in the situation of benefit sharing, and then destroy the entire ecology and activity.

• Is there more value in unlocking the chat feature?

If the first person to buy an NFT and the last person to buy an NFT can both get the opportunity to chat one-on-one with each other, but the content of the chat is similar, is the latter willing to pay more to unlock the same features?

Therefore, in terms of the functions and permissions corresponding to the NFT, you may wish to observe the subsequent design and changes of the project.

Finally, the industry is good at diligence and frolic. Social networking is a track that focuses on continuous operation and daily work, and the hard operation of the project and the unlocking of more valuable gameplay will affect the pace of development and success or failure.

Similarly, for users, Web3 is always an asset first rather than a complete one, and diligent research of the project and choosing the right time to experience it is the best solution to obtain value.