Decentral Block Post

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s Soulbound Token proposal for a robust identity and reputation system has stirred up the crypto community. 

Soulbound Tokens or SBTs are non-transferable, non-financialized tokens tied to a unique profile proving verifiable achievements and commitments. Still at the concept stage, it’s suggested SBTs will be capable of tracking memberships, credentials and affiliations with educational establishments, decentralized lenders and other entities.

Supporters say that SBTs could be the use case for the next bull market. But others have likened the concept to China’s social credit system and say it’s an “expensive solution to a problem that’s already been solved.”

So, which is it? Let’s take a deeper dive.

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!

This week, our 6 Questions go to Alex Wilson, co-founder of The Giving Block — a crypto donation solution that provides an ecosystem for nonprofits and charities to fundraise Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Alex is a co-founder of The Giving Block, a Shift4 company. The Giving Block is a leading crypto philanthropy platform that makes accepting and fundraising cryptocurrencies easy for nonprofits and empowers donors to give crypto to their favorite causes. Alex oversees The Giving Block’s growth in several areas, including technological innovation, crypto and financial partnerships, and institutional giving. 

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Anonymous hacker served with restraining order via NFT

In what’s perhaps an industry first, an anonymous defendant in an exchange-hacking legal case has received a temporary restraining order via NFT. The defendant is part of legal proceedings surrounding the January 2022 LCX exchange hack. Two legal firms served the “service token” NFT to the defendant as a restraining order, with the event touted as the first official NFT usage in the legal world.

Automated market makers are a true public good in crypto, enabling genuinely decentralized trading 24/7 and supporting the wider DeFi ecosystems. But they’re not without a host of problems, writes digital economist and academic Christos A. Makridis.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) market has surged since 2021, growing from just over $20 billion to nearly $160 billion as of March 2022, compared with a rise in the total cryptocurrency market from $433 billion to $2.5 trillion over the same period.

While the recent crypto washout in the wake of the collapse of Terra’s LUNA and UST has caused the market value of DeFi to fall almost all the way back down to $60 billion, there is still optimism in the crypto community and the market value will largely return for major crypto assets in the months and years ahead.