Soul Sync #2

Community Update & SoulSync Interviews

Mar 16, 2023

SoulSync is the first community focused on exploring the implications of soulbound tokens and ‘soul’ related technology at the advent of a decentralised society.

Soul Sync,

It feels like one of those weeks where a decade happened.

The thing is, it seems to be happening more often… My only guess is we are living through an exciting time in history.

Here are a couple of key takeaways I’ve been musing about this week, given the context of what is unfolding.

“Real” value is becoming increasingly more challenging to trust rather than verify.
1. Risk has been inflated across the board. The world is currently working out which “numbers” we can agree on and which have been fractionalised and made up so many times they no longer resemble the underlying value… bitcoin was primarily born to codify an answer to that question.
2. Inflation is finding new ways to be justified all the time.
3. The connections for global liquidity and money are being rewritten using blockchain technology; it reminds me historically of times when city-state mercantilism thrived with the advent of naval and port technologies; for example, Venice held significant power by acting as a wealth broker for global trade. Today this role has been adopted by both public and private institutions, and the balance of power between global and regional banks is currently being tested and redefined. Cryptocurrency and the financial institutions involved are the newest kid on the block and, therefore, often considered a threat; only the more decentralised technology has shown to be anti-fragile during these times of heightened risk.
Significant actions are being taken in traditional banking and politics globally. I can only imagine some of the conversations happening surrounding privately issued stablecoins, regulation, CBDCs and where blockchain fits into all of it.
1. Where this ends up will inevitably impact the problem spaces soul related technology finding its market fit. Fundamentally, reputation and trust are a bank’s most crucial assets. Could SBT technology be used to identify positive and negative actors in a more decentralised way?
2. The consolidation of banking monopolies due to bailouts and buyouts has been happening for a while now. However, this past week seems to have accelerated things.
While it is still early, I see soulbound token technology sitting at the confluence of many critical technologies that offer potential solutions to a few fundamental problems we see today. A catalysing denominator between blockchain, privacy, identity, key management and digital transformation technologies. Working to find more decentralised, positive-sum outcomes as we evolve society and economies through difficult and high-pressure times.
AI advancements are accelerating and changing the way we work and interact.
1. A few critical questions about identity and human interactions concerning AI seem to be coming up more and more regularly;
  1. Should we allow for this AI notetaker in our meetings? Where is this data going?
  2. Should there be a way to recognise whether AI or a human writes something and for that to be disclosed?
  3. Does this increase the need for proof of humanity systems in web3 identity?
  4. Where has all of this data come from?
  5. Can soulbound tokens be used as AI reputation/content citation tools?
  6. How do we design humane technology approaches when AI is involved?

I would be interested to hear the communities thoughts on some of these takes,

Overall, I tend to agree with funDAOmental’s post from today… we are heading into “A decade of paradigmatic technology change” and, given the potential of soulbound token technology, must act effectively to usher this technology to positive outcomes.

Glad to have you all here with us on this journey,

Keeper of Souls

SoulSync Community Interviews

We’ve just uploaded the first two of our introducing Soul Sync community podcast!

Thanks so much to James for getting this initiative going; we hope to continue the introductory conversations and allow multiple types of content to evolve and thrive in this community as we educate the more significant market on soulbound tokens.

Hearing from all of you so far has been fantastic. What we’ve found unique about the soulbound token ecosystem is the unique multi-disciplined approach and backgrounds of everyone who sees their way into the soul rabbit hole.

So why not say hello? Magic happens when many unique skill sets enter and share time and space.

If solutions or questions arise while listening to our members share their stories and explore the technology, be sure to bring them up in the channel.

Regenerative crypto-economic building 🌱

Hey, you may even get highlighted next sync…

The SoulSync Playlist

SoulSync Community Hangout ep1 - Sage @KeezDAO

Talk Soulbound foundations, reimagine the gating structures of DAO governance, explore social recovery to protect crypto wallets, and finish with a good vibe on the alignment between decentralised communities and Sage's humanics-based philosophy.

SoulSync Community Hangout ep2 - Alex McFarlane @Keyring Network

Alex and I the potential of KYC identity obfuscation to unlock institutional trading on-chain and where a little Soulbound magic may offer resolve to mitigate the potential for abuse across web3 gaming and more.

Sync Links

Jasmin shared National Cyber Security Strategy 2023

“For those of you who haven't seen, the US government has announced a national cyber security strategy, specifically calling out the need for the development of a "digital identity ecosystem" (strategic objective 4.5). Thoughts on SBTs as a serious contender here?”

Shady shared Web3 Privacy Tools for Civic and Social Advocacy.

“Perhaps of interest to this community why you can't have SBTs without ZK/privacy. Highlighting some of the work we are doing with 2020 US Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang”

Michi shared two fantastic links relevant to the Soulbound ecosystem;

Japan Digital Agency’s report: Web3.0 Research Group’s Report―Toward Sound Development of Web3.0 December 2022 Web3.0 Research Group (SBTs appears on P71 & 72)

Secured Finance Protocol

“Regulatory considerations are vital when examining the digital assets market. The cautious regulatory approach toward the financial system has restricted finance access for selected individuals, underscoring the need for a more inclusive and accessible financial system. DeFi’s open finance concept is instrumental in achieving financial inclusion. By employing SBT (soul-bound-token), a non-transferable NFT, as proof-of-humanity, it becomes possible to enforce specific on-chain activities and monitor on-chain AML activities. This progress signals a promising future for DeFi and regulation, contributing to enhanced financial inclusion.”

James shared EU Parliament passes smart contract regulation under data act.

“Given the natural direction for Soulbounds to play a role in data ownership, the above might have significant implications.”

Sam shared Introducing World ID and SDK

This could potentially use SBT technology as it begins the global adoption journey.

Concept Sync: Proto-SBT Contract Design

The Four Features of Proto-SBT contract design:

1 Publicly Visible

● “We initially assume publicity despite our deep interest in privacy because it is technically simpler to validate as a proof-of-concept, even if limited by the subset of tokens people are willing to publicly share.” page 2 (Weyl et al., 2022)

2 Non-transferable

● “non-transferability prevents transferring or hiding outstanding loans, while a rich ecosystem of SBTs ensures that borrowers who try to escape their loans (perhaps by spinning up a fresh Soul) will lack SBTs to meaningfully stake their reputation.” page 4 (Weyl et al., 2022)

● “the emphasis on transferability has been to web3’s detriment, making it incapable of representing and supporting some of the simplest and ubiquitous property contracts today, such as apartment leases.” page 10 (Weyl et al., 2022).

3 Possibly Revocable

● “Revocable, transferable tokens are a kind of proto-SBT—serving supportive, placental functions before Soul birth. These tokens buy time both for wallets to gestate secure, community recovery mechanisms and for a person to succinctly accumulate proto-SBTs that can eventually be burned and re-issued into non-transferable SBTs.” page 28 (Weyl et al., 2022)

4 Issuer-Arbitrated

● “In their simplest form, these SBTs can be “self-certified,” similar to how we share information about ourselves in our CVs… SBTs held by one Soul can be issued—or attested—by other Souls, who are counterparties to these relationships. These counterparty Souls could be individuals, companies, or institutions.” page 2 (Weyl et al., 2022)

● “A token is revocable if an issuer can burn the token and re-issue it to a new wallet. Burning and re-issuing would make sense when, for example, keys are lost or compromised, and the issuer has an interest in ensuring the tokens are not financialized and sold off to a party—in other words, when the token signals authentic community membership.” page 28 (Weyl et al., 2022)

Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) Study Report Part 1: Building and Embracing a New Social Identity Layer? (p20-21)

Announcements

Research Paper

BGIN IKP working group has begun calling for public contributions to the Soulbound Token Research Paper Part 2

Our scope for Part 2 is as follows:

1. Reputational Value

2. Current State of the Soulbound Token Evolvement

2.1. Technological Development

2.2. Service Development (Use Cases)

Please reach out to the Soulbis team if you’d like to contribute. We can point you in the right direction!

Idea: SoulSync Survey

We are considering conducting primary research on Soulbound tokens, getting a general gauge from our community on the essential questions and potential use cases, problems and solutions we may discover on this journey.

Over the next couple of weeks, please share what you’d like to hear or answer in an SBT survey; it’d be helpful to determine where people’s interests and questions may align.