In 2016, Steemit launched on the Steem blockchain and took off like a rocket. One year later, the bitcoin bull market charged and virtually every cryptocurrency listed on CoinMarketCap at the time flew to the moon. Including STEEM, the native cryptocurrency of the Steem blockchain and the Steemit social blogging platform. Since then, many more social networking websites using blockchain and distributed ledger technology have sprung up. Today, I’d like to mention of five of them.
- Minds – Minds is actually the first blockchain-based social media website to market, beating Steemit by about a year. Nevertheless, in terms of attractiveness, I’d put Minds in front. Unfortunately, Steem became more popular, probably due to being built on its own blockchain and its robust crypto-rewards system. Still, Minds is worth a look. Users can earn Minds tokens (an ERC-20 token), bitcoin, ether, or cash just for posting and interacting with other users’ content. Users can also join groups and start groups, tip other users, and use their Minds tokens to boost their content. Minds is also committed to free speech, saying, “We believe that censorship does not work. It creates deeper echo chambers and amplifies violence and radicalization. Free speech and civil discourse are the only way to change minds.” Minds is built on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Trybe – Trybe, built on the EOS blockchain, started out with a WordPress content interface, though I believe that has changed. Users can earn the native EOS token, TRYBE, by posting content and interacting with the content of other users. One interesting thing about Trybe is that users can stake their Trybe and earn bonuses based on how much is staked. This is a unique feature designed to strengthen the Trybe economy and keep cryptocurrency on the platform. New Trybe users earn 100 TRYBE just for signing up. In order to remove your TRYBE tokens from the platform, you’ll need an EOS account.
- Publish0x – Publish0x (pronounced Publish) is unique in that users earn tips from other users for publishing blog posts. Tippers choose a percentage of their tip to be distributed to the blogger and the rest goes to the tipper (the default is 80/20 in favor of the blogger). Users earn cryptocurrencies at random chosen from a number that are currently active. However, those tend to rotate. At one time, users could have been rewarded with Basic Attention Token (BAT). Recently, BAT was replaced by FARM. Other supported tokens include Ampleforth and Ethereum, but that could change at any time. Tips come from the Publish0x rewards pool. Users are allowed to “tip” once every 10 minutes. In order to remove tokens from the platform, users need a wallet.
- Whaleshares – I’m still new to Whaleshares, but it has an interesting history. It started as a knockoff to Steemit, using the Steemit code as the basic building blocks. It has become so much more. Like Minds, it’s more attractive than Steemit. Unlike Minds, it uses Steemit’s delegated proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The Whaleshares “Whalepaper” is an interesting read. The author spends a lot of time explaining the difference between a centralized autonomous community (CAC), a decentralized autonomous community (DAC), and mutual aid societies (MAS), a term they attribute to Dan Larimer, former CTO and founder of Steemit and former CTO and founder of Voice. Users earn the native cryptocurrency WLS.
- Voice – Voice launched last year after a long tease period. Still in infancy, the site has a lot of development ahead of it. The Voice token currently has no value outside of the Voice platform, but I suspect that will change in the next year or two. The platform, like Trybe, is built on EOS. But that’s about as much as it has in common with Trybe. What makes Voice unique is the ability to Voice a blog post by spending the Voice in your account. When you do, you get a banner ad on top of the post, which puts your profile front and center attracting more follows. Someone else can come along and spend more Voice to do the same and you’ll get a refund plus 33 percent of that user’s Voice expenditure. This process continues until someone goes 24 hours without being out-Voiced. In this way, users earn more cryptocurrencies and also earn 100 additional Voice tokens each day, if they claim them. And there’s the catch. If you don’t log in to claim your earned Voice tokens daily, you lose them. Users start out with 100 Voice tokens upon signing up. Voice also verifies user identity to prevent bots, fake accounts, and other social media evils.
I can’t say that any of these platforms are better than another, but there are things about each of them that I like. I’ve been on Trybe the longest, but I wouldn’t call it my favorite.
What’s Up With Coil?
There is one other ledger-based protocol I’d like to mention. Coil is not a social media platform, per se. Rather, it’s a monetization protocol that any website owner can use to monetize their website. That includes service businesses, e-commerce websites, bloggers, social media sites, and any other type of website. Coil relies on Interledger for payments.
Users take the Coil meta tag and add it to the <head> section of their website. When this happens, anyone who has added the Coil browser extension to their browser triggers the code and website owners earn 36 cents per hour that such users spend on their website.
There are other ways to earn with Coil. You can write to your Coil blog and be paid based on how much time subscribers spend reading your content. You can also post content to other sites, such as Cinnamon and Simmer.io. To subscribe, Coil users pay $5 per month, just like Medium subscribers. That money is used to pay rewards to content creators. One does not need to subscribe in order to earn rewards as a content creator. I encourage you to check out Coil. I really like it.
Here are my profiles at each of the above platforms:
- Minds – @Cryptocracy
- Trybe – @allentaylor
- Publish0x – @allentaylor
- Whaleshares – allen-taylor
- Voice – @cryptocracy
- Coil – – @cryptocracy