Welcome to Web3 Por Favor, where I explore the future of consumer applications. Catch me on Twitter to chat all things Web3. All views in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, Foundation.

I’ve been interested in ways that creators can rally their communities by leveraging Web3. Back in 2020, it seemed that social tokens had significant promise to enable this. Since then, there hasn’t really been much adoption of social tokens. Interestingly, NFTs are poised to fulfill the promise of social tokens as a method of giving people a sense of belonging and rewarding communities for active engagement.

This week I came across a new project by Steve Aoki, a0k1verse, which is one of the most interesting attempts I’ve seen so far of a creator leveraging Web3 to reward fans. Aoki is launching 25,000 ERC-1155 tokens while another 25,000 will be distributed as rewards to his community. These NFTs will be credits that are redeemable for a Passport, which is a dynamic NFT that evolves over time based on how the token holder uses it.

There is tier system where the more credits you redeem, the higher tier (and higher levels of rewards) you can achieve. There are a total of 6 tiers but there are no details yet as to how they differ.

Here are some of the rewards token holders can expect:

The part of this project that interests me the most is the Passport NFT’s ability to change over time. While there is no detail as to how exactly this would work and what it entails, I can imagine an interesting design that could reward truly passionate fans that buy the NFT not as speculators, but as hardcore fans who want to continue to support the creator over the long-term.

NFTs that evolve over time

What if you could prove your fandom and level of support for a creator? For example, say you love Aoki and travel around the country to watch him at various festivals and individual performances. If you owned his Passport NFT and had a way to prove that you attended all of those events, it could unlock further rewards as well as change the appearance of the NFT so that you can show it off and instantly anyone who saw it would know how devoted of a fan you are. One day, if the NFT becomes very valuable and the holder needs cash, they could sell the NFT. However, there would be provenance in the form of all the historical activity, or “proof of fandom”, that the prior holder did to elevate the status of the NFT and therefore it would be attributable to that fan, not the buyer of the NFT. In this way, one couldn’t just buy their way toward proving they are the ultimate fan, they would also have to prove it through doing things like attending concerts or other types of events. After all, the biggest show of fandom is how much time you devote, not necessarily how much money you spend.

I’m excited to see how a0k1verse evolves and I can’t wait to see more creators experiment with different models to reward their passionate fan base.