Welcome to the world of Tribz. We thought we’d say hello…

Hello world. If you’re a web3 contributor, you may have seen our name popping up a bit recently, so we thought we’d take a minute to introduce ourselves, tell you our story and reassure you we are actually a real group of people…

We formed Tribz way back in the hazy beginnings of 2022 because, amidst the growing hype of web3 and its many possible use cases, we saw an opportunity to do something really useful - to use blockchain technology and NFT principles to give web3 and web2 contributors undisputed recognition for their work. With verified proof-of-contribution tokens, we could build digital reputations where the value lies in your skills and experiences.

As we were mulling over the best way to achieve this and what it could mean, Ethereum founder and all-round web3 visionary, Vitalik Buterin, published his economically titled ‘soulbound’ blog. This, and the follow-up whitepaper, got us really thinking… and the prospect of creating a portable, verifiable and credible digital reputation seemed all the more possible. 

And so, Tribz proof-of-contribution tokens were born.

In Vitalik et als paper, soulbound tokens, once minted, should be non-transferrable and forever stay connected to the original owner. Unlike traditional transferable NFTs which are created to be traded (preferably to the eye-wateringly highest bidder), soulbound tokens can instead represent more substance. They can contain data that proves a person's work history, qualifications and creative contribution, so, are an ideal way to record verified and credible recognition of someone’s work - once you’ve earned soulbound tokens, they’re yours.

We know POAPs are out there doing similar good work around recognition, but we really liked the prospect that our soulbound tokens would give complete confidence in the validity of contributions linked to a particular wallet, and importantly we’d have the ability to add a layer of metadata to capture additional details in the token to demonstrate the impact you made to a project.

We may be getting slightly ahead of ourselves, but it’s actually in this layer of metadata we see a huge amount of potential… We think Tribz could represent any number of attributes that make your reputation so unique, whether that’s being one of the earliest contributors to a trending repo, getting a left-field DAO proposal approved, or single-handedly driving a thriving discord community with your consistently hilarious meme creations.

We’d actually really love to get your thoughts on this… to truly represent your reputation, what would you like your soulbound tokens to show?

It’s also really exciting to launch Tribz at a time when the definition of web3 itself is still up for grabs. We know that collecting metadata around your key skills and contributions and keeping it soulbound to your digital identity could have huge value as the web3 economy and ecosystem continues to evolve.

So the question is, where will your soulbound Tribz take you in the future? This question is really only limited by our imaginings of what web3 might become, but we’ve taken a stab at predicting a few possibilities…

Your Tribz could…

• become your keys to access exclusive metaverse worlds, giving you the opportunity to socialise, game alongside and watch live events with a community of your peers
• give you privileged DAO governance capabilities, making sure you’re able to vote on the major issues
• open the door to future employment opportunities, but completely on your terms - if your Tribz skills or experience match up to a recruiter’s requirements, you can decide who gets past your pseudonymous wallet to make an approach
• get you preferential terms in DeFi arrangements… better loans, more credit… who knows? 

Again, we’d love to get your thoughts on where soulbound tokens could take you in the future of web3… mention us on twitter or join us on discord and share your ideas.

With these possibilities in mind, when it came to choosing which cohort should get the first wave of Tribz tokens, we wanted to reward the amazing builders in our web3 community helping to make the desoc revolution a reality. So many of the pioneering projects driving web3 embrace open source culture, which often means many of the talented contributors are applying their skills for the love of creating good software, rather than recognition. While we hugely support this ethos, we also think there’s an opportunity to offer a deserved hat-tip to the work of these developers, including the many offering emerging and rare skillsets, such as Solidity and Go. We want each individual and unique contribution to be acknowledged and celebrated. 

With that in mind, if you’re part of a web3 project, you may have already seen an invitation from us to claim a Trib, maybe by email or via socials. We want to reassure you that we’re not scammers or spammers, we’re just a small team of web3 enthusiasts that really want to share our appreciation for your awesome work. Please go ahead and claim your deserved recognition, we’d love you to join us on this journey - who knows where it might take us all in the future?

And you hadn't heard from us yet... check our souldrops to find out if you have Tribz waiting for you.