MAX BIDDING! Not only The Saudis NFT have created a trending Twitter hashtag, it also caused a phenomenal sensation in the NFT community. We are seeing the members of the United Nation settling into the Ethereum blockchain all at once, from the Japanese to the Americans, from Indians to the Jews, don’t forget the Europeans too! The NFT space has suddenly become the ambassador of world peace. Anyway, this piece isn’t to ask you to ape in anyone of them, but to share with you the latest innovation that the Saudis bring from the Arabian Desert, the ‘Soulbound’ NFT.
Before we talked about the soulbound NFT, first thing first, we have to know what is a soulbound token (SBT). The concept of soulbound originated from one of the most epic multiplayer online games (MMORPG) on earth called ‘World of Warcraft’. If you are an active MMORPG gamer, then you are no stranger to this term. For non-gamer readers, soulbound literally means something that is bound to your soul. Let’s say you pick an item up, it will be tagging along with you forever and there is no way to sell it publicly or transfer it to your friend and family. Back to SBT, it is a publicly visible yet non-transferable and possibly revocable NFT. Generally, the whole idea of SBT is about representing commitments, credentials, and affiliations. V God, aka Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, proposed this concept on his personal website back in January this year and later published a 37-pages whitepaper with his fellow co-authors in May. The links are listed at the end of my article.
The Twin Blades of Azzinoth, one of the most iconic video game weapons of all time
Getting a powerful soulbound item in online games is neither easy nor difficult, it depends on your approach. Quoted from Vitalik’s article, you may coordinate with other players to complete a series of complicated quests, or just pay a team of professionals to carry you all the way. Even if you paid to earn your soulbound item, at least it’s still an extra effort to do so, eventually everything comes with a price as the professionals don’t work for free. So how about soulbound NFT? Some features of soulbound NFT is to prove one’s credential, credibility, achievement, or even dedication. Say you attended an offline web3 event and scanned the QR code to mint that exclusive event NFT. Of course, you can always purchase a wallet outright that has the soulbound token in it but you can’t be showing off tons of wallets, right? Imagine ten soulbound NFTs in a single wallet and ten NFTs across ten wallets, which is more compelling?
Vitalik’s proof of attendance NFTs (POAP) of numerous blockchain events
SBT became a hit after the whitepaper release. If you follow Coinlive closely, we had an NFT minting guide earlier this month, and that NFT is actually a soulbound token on Binance Smart Chain. Check it out if you have not.
Free NFT by Project Twelve (P12), a pioneer of Web3 gaming platform. Link to guide: https://www.coinlive.com/news/detail/?id=8222
Now I believe we have a basic understanding of what soulbound token is, let’s dig into the so-called ‘SaudiBound Token’. SaudiBound Token is actually functioned the same as a soulbound token, however, instead of binding to a blockchain wallet address, it binds with its mother NFT collection - The Saudis NFT. Within the first week of public mint, The Saudis airdropped its first SaudiBound NFT to all its NFT holders. This is also the first time ever an NFT project has done so: an NFT bound to an NFT. The SaudiBound NFT is connected to the Saudis NFT and cannot be separated from it. The Saudis is still a normal functional NFT that can be freely listed or transferred, while The SaudiBound can only move along with it, like a duckling following its mother duck. Let’s see how it works.
1. Original PFP collection of The Saudis NFT. User ‘w000t’ purchased it from previous holder ‘adrian48’.
2. The SaudiBound NFT automatically transferred to w000t without permission from adrian48, as SaudiBound is soulbound to The Saudis NFT.
3. The on-chain transactions look like this.
4. w000t now has two NFTs instead of the one that he bought.
Unlike the airdrops of most blue-chip NFT projects, say BAYC Mutant Serum, Moonbirds Oddities, SaudiBound cannot be sold or transferred alone by itself. The Saudis devs think that airdropping a new NFT collection will dilute the value of previous collection, hence the SaudiBound Token. Regardless of the effort, the floor price of Saudis NFT plummeted since airdrop. Apparently, a majority of holders aren’t satisfied with the new artwork. Well, everyone has their own preferences. To me, The Saudis NFT is pretty innovative, and also the artwork of both PFP and airdrop changes from time to time. At the end of the journey of max bidding, the devs promised a very special gift to diamond hand holders. Even if you are not holding a Saudi, the advancement of this NFT project is still pretty exciting and worthwhile to watch.
Day and night cycle of SaudiBound NFT. It comes with music too!
More to read below.
‘Soulbound’, article by Vitalik: https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/01/26/soulbound.html
Whitepaper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4105763
Written by: [Coinlive] Nell