Feature Friday n°12: SoulBound Tokens (SBTs)

Written By Tamino Baumann

Introduction

Hey friends,

Welcome to Feature Friday! Each week, this series highlights new identity features available with the walt.id tooling. Check out last week's lesson on the Mobile Driver’s License (mDL) ! For feedback or episode suggestions, connect with us on Discord!

Today, we explore souldbound tokens (SBTs), which are non-transferable unique digital tokens, stored on the blockchain, created by a smart contract and owned by a web3 address.

What are SoulBound Tokens (SBTs) ?

  • Unique: Like NFTs, Soulbound tokens are non-fungible. They can not be exchanged for one another, like it is with Bitcoins.

  • Souldbound: Meaning once issued to an address, the token can not be transferred to another address. Therefore, unlike NFTs, they are not tradable. They can not be sold or bought on public markets.

What do SBTs enable ?

  • Unique Use-cases: Being soulbound and unique, SBTs enable use-cases previously impossible. By making it possible to tie data to an individual or entity, they bring things like:

    • Proof Of Personhood

    • Proof Of Attendance

    • Proof Of A Completed KYC Process

  • Automated Utility: The information stored in SBTs can be reused across the entire ecosystem, enabling various types of automated utility.

    However, whilst it is a great approach to store information that should be associated only with one identity (address). The data should never entail personal data that must be kept private, like health data. For that, Verifiable Credentials and mdocs are a much better approach as here the data is never stored on a blockchain and therefore publicly available.

SoulBound Token features

With our open source tools, you can:

  1. Mint & Distribute SBTs create smart contracts, mint and distribute SBTs on different EVM chains.

  2. Build Utility by leveraging our strong SBT ownership and SBT metadata verification tools.

  3. Enable Login with SBTs in web2 by extending any web2 IAM (Identity and access management tool) like Auth0 or Keycloak with SBT login.

  4. Extend Apps To Display SBTs using our wallet-kit.

… but wait there’s more:

  • Works Across Programming Languages: You can mint, distribute and verify SBTs easily with our NFT-Kit, offering a CLI tool, a REST service and a Java and Kotlin library.

  • Works Across Ecosystems: Currently, we support a wide range of ecosystems to mint SBTs on, like Ethereum, Polygon and Shimmer.

  • Flexible, Extensible and Open-Source: Using our tools you can leverage the wide range of already supported ecosystems or extend our modular system bringing support for your.

Demo

Watch our short demo, showcasing how you can mint & verify SBTs using our NFT-Kit.

 
 

Get Started

Now, here's your dose of tech humour for the day:

Why did the integer drown?
Because it couldn't float.

Catch you next Friday! Until then, feel free to join us on discord!

Best,

Tamino from walt.id

Tamino Baumann
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Feature Friday n°13: Data Functions
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Feature Friday n°11: Mobile Driver’s License (mDL - ISO 18013-5)