🪙Soul-bound tokens
Pythia's soul-bound tokens.
Last updated
Pythia's soul-bound tokens.
Last updated
What are soul-bound tokens?
Why use soul-bound tokens in Pythia?
Pythia's soul-bound tokens?
Soulbound tokens are a type of token that represent commitments, credentials, and affiliations of the holder. The concept of souldbound tokens was first broached by Vitalik Buterin in "Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul" (2022). The concept is closely related to the idea of on-chain reputation.
The idea being put forward is that Web3 needs its own version of reputation systems, because reputation systems are a convenient way to establish basic trust and transact in our highly impersonal societies. The Web3 world already has reasonably effective reputation systems (e.g., credit rating, academic credentials); however, most of these are not applicable to the Web3 context, due to the latter's greater demands to privacy, decentralization, and personal sovereignty.
Soulbound tokens are therefore a way to reinvent reputation systems in a way that does not contradict Web3 and crypto's core tenets.
Soulbound tokens are usually untransferable and have some reputation function underlying them (i.e. function that determines how the holders accumulate and/or lose reputation/track record).