New platform Soulbound tailors an interactive social solution to the Web3-native generation.

In Wall Street parlance, “DRIP” stands for “dividend reinvestment plan.” In the Gen Z lexicon, though, “drip” is the style one exudes. It’s from this usage that Soulbound named its reputation points token. By offering gamers and community members DRIP tokens, gamer IDs and content bounties, Soulbound is pursuing its goal of empowering the new creator economy.

Soulbound’s whole mission is to give creators – of games, of streaming content, of digital art – a medium through which they can earn a living doing what they love.

“Until now, monetization of content has been locked behind viewer and subscriber thresholds, which prevents the vast majority of people from earning as they try to break into streaming,” said cofounder A.I. Mansbridge. “At Soulbound, we’re leveling the playing field by removing those barriers, allowing all creators to earn based on their engagement and contributions, rather than just the top 5%.”

While you could frame Soulbound as Twitch for Generation Crypto, it’s not Web3 just for the sake of the new tech. The tech is just an entry point for new functionality – a suite of possibilities to serve a new breed of gamers and their future-facing community members.

Making a difference

In a world where there’s already a legacy platform such as Twitch, as well as a first cohort of blockchain-native competitors, Soulbound has gone through the rigorous work of distinguishing itself in the market.

Like any digital asset-based venture, its success lay in its ability to grow the space. For Soulbound, nothing is more critical than onboarding new users into Web3 gaming – and streamers play a critical role. To bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 gaming ecosystems, the project employs a user-friendly interface that encourages streamers to control their content from a single dashboard, leveraging larger audiences with fewer resources. Soulbound continues to cultivate relationships with streamers and works directly with game studios to offer special bounties to reward these influencers for connecting with their games.

“I believe Soulbound can be the future home for streamers. We have been building the platform to be the mycelial hub for all gamers, but with our new streaming initiatives there are new, innovative ways for streamers to earn and grow. We have seen our own streamers take things to the next level through the Soulbound experience and there will be many more,” says PainUser, a partnered streamer and former pro-gamer.

Soulbound is also working with games in mind to unlock user acquisition. A player’s DRIP points, banked under a unique gamer ID system, track their achievements and rankings. Drilling down into player behavior, likes and dislikes can foster relationships that will improve the experience for games and gamers alike.

This mechanism is also an opportunity for community members to have some good-natured fun at each other via Soulbound’s own sticker, emotes and wallpaper marketplace.

“Once you post content, you can vandalize people’s posts with stickers – just kind of a fun engagement mechanism you can use with any Soulbound stickers,” says Soulbound cofounder Casey Grooms. “You can buy stickers directly from artists on Soulbound and slap them across different people’s posts. It’s just like this fun, quirky experience that emulates street culture tags.”

Ultimately, though, what gets incentivized is all that’s likely to get done. That’s why Soulbound makes it a priority to incentivize streaming and content creation. Soulbound’s microstreamer bounties incentivize growing streamers to join the platform and reach a broader, Web3-adjacent audience, while the sticker marketplace opens a new revenue stream for NFT artists and other digital creatives.

“Becoming a streamer has been a dream of mine since the pandemic, but I lacked motivation. Soulbound changed that, opening the door to my dream career,” says Soulbound user AaroooNFT. “They’ve not only given me the confidence to pursue streaming but also helped me grow my audience and improve my gaming rig through rewards from game nights and other activities. I’ve also made friends from many different places and now we’re having fun and earning at the same time while playing together.”

“We don’t do any complicated creator contracts,” according to Grooms. “It’s very simple: You play the game, stream it, and you get paid out. And we’re now building more granular features through which you get paid based on such metrics as how much engagement you had in your livestream chat or how many viewers you had relative to followers you have in your live stream. You get paid a little bit more to help live streamers kick start their career with Soulbound. And I’ve seen a lot of success.”

Origin story

Soulbound, now two years old, is a social gaming platform delivering revolutionary gamer identities, community interactions and creator incentives. Backed by top gaming and Web3 VCs, including Animoca Brands, Everest Ventures Group, iAngels and Big Brain Holdings, Soulbound is onboarding Web3’s next generation of gamers, streamers and creators. Soulbound serves as an onboarding station for gamers, artists and NFT collectors.

“We wanted to track achievements in-game – similar to how Steam works. The game can then track real-time in-game events – what achievement did you unlock or what badge did you earn,” recounts Grooms. “We wanted to do that for Web3 gaming and enable gamers to build their profile and identity. Everything you do within different games come together” in one profile.

These new functions have attracted new users and viewers. Soulbound recently reported that it hosts 150 streamers playing more than 100 games. Meantime, games like Shrapnel, Parallel and Nifty Island already use Soulbound streamers to promote activations and engagement.

More to come

Grooms hinted that Soulbound would soon roll out a prediction market to make following livestreams even more interesting. You can soon cheer on your favorite players with not just your follows and posts, but with your hard-won DRIP points. If you have confidence in the outcome of a game or something as simple as what weapon the player brings into battle, you could turn your speculation into on-platform assets. Think Polymarket for livestreams.

It’ll get even easier, Grooms says, when Soulbound puts its Telegram app into production.

What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Gaming and the creator economy will continue to evolve and, as long as Web3 continues to spur on that evolution, Soulbound is well-positioned to react to this ever-changing environment.