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Since the earliest days of human civilization, people have been organizing their thoughts and ideas in social groups. We instinctively want to share our experiences with others and gather information, opinions, and entertainment from them. Ever since the internet appeared in our lives 30 years ago, social media has played an increasingly important role in connecting people to each other while also offering new ways to share information in a fast and efficient manner. Social media has become a massive part of online life and the economy. Facebook, Twitter, and Google generate trillions of dollars worth of revenue. But at what cost? Big companies are increasingly controlling and censoring what you can see on their platforms. For example, Google forces YouTube watchers to avoid ads using its paid 'premium' platform. Facebook is censoring users under the guise of "protecting their community," and Twitter has a locked-down verified accounts system. People have grown tired of being fed controlled information and are exploring viable alternatives that provide control over their data. We're seeing more and more people waking up to the dangers of centralized social media platforms. It's not only privacy concerns but also how their moderation practices are in no way transparent and their tendency to silence people with a differing opinions.
Welcome to the world of crypto social media platforms
Blockchain is one of the most trending and revolutionary technologies of our time. With each passing year, it seems that we are discovering some new use cases for blockchain technology. From the finance sector to the music and media industry to the food industry - blockchain technology applications seem limitless. And today, we will take a closer look at how blockchain has revolutionized social media and review the top nine crypto social media platforms (in no particular order).Check out this article if you'd like to go back to basics and learn how decentralized social networks operate.
#1 Torum social network
Torum is one of the newest ad-free crypto social media platforms. It looks like a mix of Twitter and Facebook and has its own token to reward active users. People can also gift coins to other users for quality content. This network offers company pages and clans, smaller forums that focus on their own goals. Company pages have similar features to LinkedIn, so you can add your team members, post on the page, And interact with other users or companies using your company page.Torum has a beautiful design and is very easy to use. The search function allows you to find users, new people, clans, and companies. Even though Torum doesn't have a mobile app yet, its browser version is quite mobile-friendly.Torum is backed by 20 prominent investors, including Huobi Ventures, U21, and Consensus Lab. It's the first social network for crypto fans and an NFT+DeFi platform that grows faster than any other crypto network, with more than 20% monthly user growth each month.
#2 Minds
In 2015, Yahoo Games founder and WhatsApp seed investor Eron Wolf founded Minds social media platform to allow people to "Speak freely and earn crypto." Minds is a next-generation social network with revolutionary privacy controls and rewards for users, taking back the power of information from corporations. This open-source network doesn't mine user data for ad purposes and focuses on privacy. In June 2021, Minds raised $10M from Futo, a freedom tech organization. With 15M active users, instant messaging features, and earning opportunities, Minds is a real alternative to Twitter and other conventional social networks. It has all the features of YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter and an extremely user-friendly mobile experience. Minds social network doesn't censor any views or opinions, and everyone is free to speak their mind on the platform. When you post something or interact with others' content, you can earn tokens, depending on the action you make. For example, you will earn a few points by checking your feed or liking someone's post. However, if you write a blog post or share a valuable link, you will gain more.You can use Minds.com tokens to boost your content. One token can boost a post for 1000 impressions. What's more, if your content got high engagement and was interesting for users, you can earn your tokens back, recover what you've spent on boosting your post, and maybe even make some profit.It's hard to measure the monetary value of the tokens because they are currently in the testnet.
#3 SocialX. An Instagram alternative
SocialX is an open-source, community-driven, distributed project. It is very similar to Instagram as a photo- and video-first platform that favors visual content. The social media platform rewards users with the SOCX token that you can trade on several platforms. One of the most remarkable features of SocialX is Superlikes. When you receive Superlikes, SocialX rewards you with SOCX tokens from its own reward pool.Like many other crypto social networks, SocialX allows you to earn tokens for posting photos and videos. The network plans to launch company pages and its own prepaid credit card soon so that users will be able to spend their rewards instantly using the SocialX card.
#4 BitClout DeSo project
In September 2021, BitClout raised $200M from several VC firms, including Social Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Polychain Capital. Bitclout launched in March 2021 and has sparked a lot of controversy because of creator coins tied to famous people, like Ariana Grande and Elon Musk. Those coins were launched without permission from those people by simply featuring their Twitter accounts on the platform. Despite this controversy, BitClout continues attracting new users thanks to its open-source nature and earning potential.
Creators can earn DeSo tokens in several ways:
1. By collecting "founder rewards." It's a percentage of the amount that each user earns when someone purchases their coin. It's up to the user to define the reward %. For example, if it's set to 10% when someone invests $100 in your coin, you earn $10.
2. By creating and sharing valuable content, participating in NFT projects, and being an active member of the community, you can attract more investments and increase your coin's value.
3. Investing in other promising creators who join the platform and speculating on the value of their coins.
4. Buying and selling NFTs.
5. By earning diamonds for your content. Steven Zeller, a former senior software engineer at Foundry.ai and a contributor to the open-source DeSo project launched a separate Diamond app on top of the DeSo blockchain, where you can send and receive diamonds instead of likes. Every single like translates into anywhere from $0.01 to $1,000, meaning that if a post gets a million likes, you could easily earn more than a million dollars.
In short, BitClout DeSo encourages network participants to create valuable content, art, NFTs, music, and work on exciting projects that help attract more investments.
#5 DTube. Decentralized YouTube
DTube's website looks and feels similar to YouTube, making it easy for new users to adapt to the platform quickly. However, unlike YouTube, DTube doesn't have any ads, so it feels cleaner and smoother than its centralized counterpart. What’s more, search results in DTube are shown by relevance to your query and are not influenced by any algorithms that centralized search engines use. It acts as a decentralized search engine for videos.Everyone can earn rewards on DTube for being active on the platform. For example, as a content creator, you gain rewards for the number of likes and comments on your videos (each comment is worth approximately $0.05).
Key DTube features:
1. Once the video is uploaded, it can't be forcefully edited or removed.
2. No ads. No premium subscription.
3. Zero censorship.
4. You can see who liked and disliked videos.
5. Everyone (content creators and content consumers) earns money on DTube.
#6 Ignite. Decentralized microblogging on the blockchain.
Ignite has a unique positioning among other crypto social media platforms as a decentralized microblogging service created from the ground up with the goal to make a truly independent platform. With speed, security, and decentralization as the founders' core values, they build this project on top of The Prometeus Framework. Ignite is inspired by the importance of freedom of speech, the fight against censorship, and protecting anonymity. It allows anyone with modern internet access to share their opinions and exchange ideas without worrying about being censored or having their identity revealed.Today, Ignite has 82K users. Prometeus network enables various ways of monetizing users' data. For example, you can buy or sell data as documents, videos or pictures in a decentralized, anonymous manner.
#7 Flote
The Flote social network is a place where you can share your art, performance, and stories. It's a community-driven project that allows users to live stream, and post audio, video, images, and text posts. It offers a Patreon-like subscription to fans that get exclusive content from creators in exchange for a monthly tip.Flote doesn't have any platform fees. Today, it features an integrated Bitcoin wallet that enables you to purchase BTC with your debit or credit card. They will launch their native token, Flote, in 2022. The project's founders have big plans, including a decentralized exchange, support for more cryptocurrencies, Flote market, and much more.
#8 Cent
Image via cent.co[/caption]
Cent runs on the Ethereum blockchain famous for its smart contracts technology and is called so after decentralization and incentivization. It's a mix of Quora, Craiglist, Steemit, Medium, and Twitter. Cent's community appreciates long-form content, questions, and answers, as well as great visuals. Moreover, it pays users for creating content.Bounties are unique to Cent, and they are a great way to reward valuable responses and insights. For example, if you need to crowdsource survey responses, figure out what resources you should use for your whitepaper, or even get someone to edit your thesis - you can set a bounty on it. The minimum bounty is 0.001 ETH. Cent is currently in beta. However, thanks to community support, it has developed a sleek and convenient user interface. Everyone can earn crypto on Cent through monthly contributions from other users called seeding. The platform takes a 5% fee. What's more, if you are seeding a creator after another user has already seeded this creator before you, you earn 50% of the contribution.
#9 Blockster
Blockster is one of the most popular crypto social media platforms thanks to its vibrant newsfeed and its focus on the crypto community. Connecting 200+ million crypto fans worldwide, the platform features its native utility token ($BXR) that everyone can use for the following transactions:
- Buying ads
- Purchasing NFTs, games, and services at Blockster's marketplace
- Staking
- Community governance
- Tipping content producers
- P2P transactions
The content on Blockster focuses on blockchain and crypto to help blockchain hustlers get the latest information, share ideas, seek advice, and money-making tips. Crypto startups and blockchain projects can create company pages (just like LinkedIn), run ad campaigns, and build an engaged audience.
Blockdesk
Blockdesk is one of the main Blockster's highlights. It's a crypto blog that could easily replace Medium for blockchain-focused content. Everyone can publish on Blockdesk. However, only the trending articles or those selected by their editorial team will be featured on the main page. Moreover, Blockster has an extensive team of professional crypto authors, journalists, and influencers who publish articles on Blockdesk.
What's next for crypto social media platforms?
The attention economy has become a big business. Every day, people spend hours trying to get their content seen, heard, and read. However, on traditional social media platforms, the content you create today could be censored tomorrow. That video that took you a few weeks to create and edit can be taken down in a blink of an eye, even if you haven't violated the terms of service. There is no guarantee of your privacy. For instance, Facebook has many settings which allow them to monitor you. They can sell your information to 3rd parties and even advertisers in some cases. Decentralized social media platforms offer freedom of speech, privacy, and transparency. You are the owner of your data, and you have complete control over it. Most networks allow you to run your own nodes and build your communities with your rules on top of existing platforms. Whether you love taking pictures, streaming, creating video content, or writing blogs - blockchain social media networks have something to offer to everyone. Many more projects are coming up soon, including the first social network on the Solana blockchain. The earning potential is unlimited, and you have complete control of your content. Nobody can censor you, delete or edit your content, demonetize your posts, or ban you from the platform.
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