In brief
- Actor Terry Crews has launched his own social currency on crypto platform Roll.
- Social currencies aim to create a new kind of relationship between artists and their fans.
Actor Terry Crews is launching a social currency called $POWER, with the help of crypto start-up Roll.
According to TechCrunch, Crews’ ultimate goal with his $POWER social currency is to empower artists. “That’s our long-term plan, to become this thing that this community can live and exist in,” Crews said.
Roll allows individuals to create “social currencies”, allowing them to own, control and coordinate their own value and get closer to fans and consumers. Described as the “blockchain infrastructure for social money,” Roll is powered by the Ethereum Network. That means that any Roll social currency is minted and distributed as a standard ERC20 token.
Roll might be a start-up, but its market is growing significantly. Its social money has a market cap of $1.2 billion, and sees a 24 hour trade volume of $2.7 million.
Getting closer to fans
The concept of actors, musicians, and influencers getting closer to their fans by decentralizing their content is gaining traction in the crypto industry.
World-famous rapper Akon is also getting on board with Roll. He partnered with the start-up in order to provide support to African influencers that create their own currencies on Roll. In turn, creators can choose to support Akon’s various business ventures.
Souja Boy, best known for his hit single “Crank That”, has considered creating his own cryptocurrency, too. He publicly opined on the subject on Twitter earlier this year. “Thoughts on me creating my own crypto?” he asked.
Thoughts on me creating my own crypto?
— Soulja Boy (Drako) (@souljaboy) January 19, 2021
Elsewhere in the industry, a social token incubator called Seed Club is trying to make sure the social currency industry truly takes off. In October of last year, Seed Club held a hackathon to engage the Ethereum community in the growing social token industry. The hackathon itself gave up $10,000 in awards.