Masa Finance has launched the very first soulbound id protocol for the Ethereum mainnet, in accordance to a Jan. 17 push release shared with Cointelegraph. The protocol will enable for standardized soulbound tokens to be minted on Ethereum for Know Your Buyer verification, credit score scores and other use instances.
Soulbound tokens are tokens that are not able to be transferred from one particular wallet to a different. The principle was popularized via a web site post from Vitalik Buterin, who argued that these tokens could be used to signify governance legal rights for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols or to confirm that a person has attended an function.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Masa Finance founders Brendan Playford and Calanthia Mei argued that soulbound tokens will extend opportunities for DeFi consumers to create credit history and get loans. Mei discussed it as this sort of:
We want to support individuals faucet into [an] on-chain credit score technique with a Net3 credit rating rating, with the data sources that we have aggregated across Net2 and Web3 representing and assisting people establish their creditworthiness on-chain. We’re currently performing with a number of lending companions in extending DeFi financial loans to those people people who have minted a Masa credit history rating report.
She emphasised that Masa soulbound tokens are not merely attached to a conventional credit score rating. The protocol goes over and above traditional finance to incorporate both of those World wide web2 and World-wide-web3 activity. Mei explained that above 10,000 facts points are utilized in a Masa credit history score, together with a user’s FICO rating, Plaid transaction facts for credit rating and debit cards, Net3 wallet transaction heritage, centralized trade balances, and other information.
Mei believes this technique will lead to “risk-based mostly underwriting” in DeFi, which she claims has formerly not been attainable thanks to the lack of identification protocols on blockchain networks.
The founders also said there is a person other use circumstance at the moment offered for the protocol. Apart from symbolizing a credit rating, the 2nd use circumstance for the protocol is .soul domain names. These are identical to ENS names, but with the extra benefit that they can be connected to a variety of Masa identification attributes. Playford stated that “users can link unique attributes, use their pseudonym to confirm them selves, clearly show that they’re verified in Internet3 without doxing [their] comprehensive title, for example.”
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Playford pointed out that .soul area names can be transferred from just one wallet to a different. Nonetheless, the characteristics associated with them will come to be unattached if the area is moved. Thus, end users can’t “buy” the id or credit score score of a further person.
According to the founders, a 3rd use case will be id verification, a element the organization is releasing underneath the title “Masa Inexperienced.” It will make it possible for users to mint a Masa Green token to establish their identity, which the corporation thinks will support end users to demonstrate they are actual individuals, not bots. According to Mei, this will aid do away with bots in perform-to-gain online games and other apps wherever the local community wants only actual humans to participate. The organization claimed Masa Eco-friendly will be accessible as a “fast stick to within just the coming months.”
Masa is not the only soulbound token protocol to be implemented on a blockchain community. Binance has produced its own variation, termed BAB, which can be employed to demonstrate a user’s id. Nonetheless, BAB is at present only out there on BNB Chain. Masa appears to be the 1st soulbound token protocol available on Ethereum.
