Banner image comes from an art piece by Rare Designer. You can see their work on OpenSea - https://opensea.io/assets/odysseum-cyberpunk-store
I wrote an article last week with an introduction to $WHALE coin. Today, I want to take a slightly more in-depth look into this new social currency.
$WHALE as a Social Currency
In the official whitepaper, WhaleShark says that he wants Whale to be a social currency. Specifically...
$WHALE is a social currency that is backed by tangible and rare NFT assets, while embodying scarcity through definitive limited issuance.
What the hell does that really mean, anyway? What is a 'Social Currency'. In traditional terms, it's about the value your customers bring to your brand via word of mouth (basically). Here is Wikipedia's definition.
Social currency refers to the actual and potential resources from presence in social networks and communities, including both digital and offline. It is, in essence, an action made by a company or stance of being, to which consumers feel a sense of value when associating with your brand, while the humanization of your brand generates loyalty and "word of mouth" virality for the organization. The concept derives from Pierre Bourdieu's social capital theory and relates to increasing one's sense of community, granting access to information and knowledge, helping to form one's identity, and providing status and recognition.
In the crypto world, that concept has been turned around a bit. The value an individual brings to a social network via their interactions with it and their ability to bring in outside interests, has been commoditized so that the user receives actual monetary compensation in addition to any "status and recognition".
This is actually pretty cool, and a big part of what brought me more heavily into the blogging scene. Trying to monetize a regular blog almost always involves advertisements of some sort. But with systems such as Medium, Hive, Steem, and Publish0X, all you have to do is create content that other folks will find entertaining and informative.
Whale does not provide a blogging platform, but you can be rewarded by writing articles such as this one and posting it in the appropriate Discord channel. And interestingly enough, there is already a rapidly growing social scene. You can receive $WHALE by participating and hanging out during any of the numerous virtual social events! There are regularly scheduled trivia and poker nights, chats and videos from NFT artists, DJ nights, and more!
Apparently, you can also choose to accept $WHALE for your NFT sales on OpenSea if you have a Storefront (which unfortunately wants to charge me $40+ each time I try -- darn Gas prices!)
What about The Vault?
All this Social Currency talk is great, but how does that tie in with that vault full of sweet, sweet NFT collectibles? First off, the Vault serves to underpin the basic value of the $WHALE token.
There are plans to set up self-feeding loops by renting out digital real estate from The Vault and selling art pieces occasionally -- for WHALE tokens. Any revenue from the Vault will be re-invested back into the Vault, thus continually driving up the value of the associated tokens as long as the NFTs maintain or increase their value. And so far they have, and the estimated value of the Vault continues to grow.
$WHALE is an asset-backed currency, but rather than basing it off of tangible assets, the value comes from digital artworks and collectibles. There was a one-time mint of 10 million $WHALE, so there will be no inflationary aspects. The Vault will continue to grow as more assets are added, and presumably continue to gain in overall value as collecting NFTs becomes more mainstream.
Why Should I Trust WhaleShark?
This is one of the biggest and most frequently asked questions. "What's to keep WhaleShark" from transferring all of the NFTs out of the Vault wallet and running off laughing into the sunset?"
Well, at the moment, nothing actually. There is a general idea to create some sort of governance system in the future, but as far as I know, nothing specific is in the works yet. It's currently a trust based system, and understandably, trust can be hard to come by in the crypto world.
But, to be honest, there is little reason to not be willing to offer up some modicum of trust here. The NFT collection began long before the Whale token ever existed, and most, if not all, were purchased with personal monies from Whale Shark. He also lays out his motivations behind the whole thing in this article, which is definitely worth reading if you're looking at WHALE as an investment.
In regards to protections for the Vault, here is the relevant section from the official FAQ.
What steps are the $WHALE team implementing to ensure the security of The Vault as well as a smooth transition in the event that something happens to the custodian?
1, While the longer term vision is to ensure that we use decentralized DAO technology to mitigate the risks of the above, until we are 100% comfortable with the stability, security and flexibility of the technology, we have implemented fool proof physical mechanisms to guarantee the security and continuity of The Vault at all times.
2, The Vault and its corresponding fail safes are secured in a multi level layer, multi step process that spans several countries. In order to prevent any potential threats to the illegal acquisition of The Vault, I will leave the exact process and locations ambiguous.
3, Should something happen to the custodian of The Vault, certain trustworthy members of the community will each receive the information to piece together a Vault Recovery process that will allow $WHALE to continue.
4, The above measures are in place while we await the growth and maturity of a DAO mechanism that will allow us to move to an even more transparent and stream lined process.
VIP System for Whale Holders
In a bit of interesting news, just this week a VIP section was introduced on Discord for those who hold 500+ WHALE, with numerous perks for being a member.
If you want to you can purchase $WHALE directly, you can get it fromUniswap, https://app.uniswap.org/#/swap?outputCurrency=0x9355372396e3F6daF13359B7b607a3374cc638e0
And there we have a bit of a more detailed look into $WHALE coin. Let me know if you have any other questions or aspects about the project that you would like me to delve into.