Unlocking Web3 identification password: SBT Token redefines personal reputation

From Game Concept to Blockchain Revolution

In May 2022, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, along with legal expert Puja Ohlhaver and economist E. Glen Weyl, released a notable white paper titled “Decentralized Society: Finding the Soul of Web3.” This document presented a radical idea – using sbt token (soulbound token) to reshape our understanding of identity and trust.

Where does the inspiration come from? The answer is quite interesting. These three thinkers draw inspiration from the game “World of Warcraft.” In the game, certain soulbound items cannot be sold or transferred, and once obtained, they permanently belong to that character. Now, imagine applying this concept to blockchain identity—that's the core logic of the sbt token.

What is SBT Token? How does it work?

In simple terms, sbt token is a non-transferable digital identity credential. It is stored in a wallet known as a “soul”, representing the characteristics, abilities, and achievements of a person or organization.

Unlike NFTs that can be freely bought and sold, sbt tokens cannot be traded once issued. Its value lies not in money, but in identity and reputation. Medical records, work experience, degree certificates, community contributions—all of these can be the contents of sbt tokens.

The key point is that a person can have multiple “soul” wallets corresponding to different parts of life. For example, there is a “professional soul” that stores work certificates, and a “medical soul” that stores health data, just like creating independent profiles for each of their identities on the Blockchain.

Five Major Real-World Application Scenarios

Degree Certification: Universities no longer issue physical diplomas, but instead issue sbt tokens to graduates as a “soul” institution. This token contains complete information about your degree, major, grades, and more. It is sufficient to present this token wherever degree verification is required.

Job Resume: Imagine your entire career encoded in a series of sbt tokens—work experience tokens issued by previous employers, professional qualification tokens from industry certification bodies, and even recommendation tokens from colleagues. This is harder to forge than traditional resumes, and the information is also more three-dimensional.

Medical Referrals: Changing doctors? No more time-consuming and labor-intensive forms and transferring old records. An sbt token containing complete medical history is instantly available on the Blockchain, allowing healthcare providers to access it securely.

Credit Scoring System: In DeFi lending, the sbt token can record your lending history, repayment records, and risk ratings. It's similar to the credit score of traditional banks, but entirely based on on-chain verifiable data.

Employee ID: The company can issue sbt tokens as a “soul” for employees, indicating their position, department, and date of employment. This is very useful for internal permission management and security verification.

The Most Urgent Question in Web3: Who Should I Trust

The Web3 world is plagued by a paradox — the system is designed to be “trustless”, yet in reality, trust is needed everywhere. How do you determine the credibility of a stranger wallet holder? Are they an experienced investor or a newcomer? Have they ever defaulted?

This is exactly where the sbt token comes into play. Through issuance and verification, the sbt token will digitize, make transparent, and ensure the immutability of reputation data.

In DAO governance, the influence is immense. Currently, many DAOs adopt a “one token, one vote” system, where the person holding the most tokens has the greatest power. This leads to a problem—whales come in with large amounts of capital and directly control the voting rights. However, if voting rights are changed to sbt tokens, power shifts to those community members who are truly active and contributing, not just to those who are wealthy.

More importantly, the sbt token can prevent “witch attacks”—malicious actors manipulating DAO votes by creating hundreds of fake accounts. Since the sbt token is a verifiable representation of real identity, fake accounts have nowhere to hide.

Current Situation and Prospects

As of August 2022, the sbt token is mainly still in the theoretical stage. However, some platforms have already begun to take action. Industry insiders predict that the first batch of real sbt token applications will emerge before the end of 2022.

Glen Weyl, the author of the white paper, stated that Web3 will ultimately see the widespread adoption of sbt tokens. The question is not whether it will happen, but when and how to gracefully implement this transition.

Final Thoughts

sbt token represents a bold vision—in a decentralized world, personal identity, reputation, and achievements are no longer monopolized by a single entity, but exist on the Blockchain in a self-sovereign manner.

It currently seems a bit idealistic. But think about the development speed of Web3 over the past decade—from Bitcoin to smart contracts to the DeFi ecosystem, each step seemed incredible at the time. The sbt token may be becoming the infrastructure of the Web3 identity layer; we just have not fully realized its importance yet.