Coordinape Launches ‘CoLinks’ Professional Social Network For Crypto

A project focused on human coordination is launching a social network to attract crypto enthusiasts looking to get off Twitter and LinkedIn.

Coordinape has launched CoLinks, a professional networking application that centers around the concept of reputation, or “rep.” Users can establish rep through their wallet activity or through off-chain actions like linking a Twitter or LinkedIn account.

This reputation lives on a soulbound NFT, so users will have the option to export it outside the new application.

With SocialFi apps like FriendTech and Farcaster garnering attention this year, CoLinks is entering a market with renewed optimism for social applications with blockchain-based infrastructure.

The idea for CoLinks has percolated since 2020, Zemm, a pseudonymous team member at Coordinape, told The Defiant. At the time, though, it wasn’t clear how a network like CoLinks would work. “ We didn’t really see a great way to give an incentivized kind of gravity to it,” he said.

That changed when FriendTech took the crypto world by storm earlier this year with its system of “keys,” which grant a buyer access to the private chatroom of the key’s creator. “When FriendTech launched, we were like okay, interesting, this is a really nice incentivization pattern and noise filtering pattern.”

A user’s keys get more expensive as more people buy them, following a mechanism called a bonding curve. CoLinks uses the bonding curve developed by FriendTech but has made it less steep so more people can join a person’s network at lower prices.

Buying someone’s “Links,” as they’re called on CoLinks, means their posts show up on your feed, and your posts show up on theirs. Zemm added that if someone buys a user’s Link, but that user doesn’t want to see their buyer’s posts, CoLinks offers a mute option.

“Maybe friends buy each other’s Links, or maybe you might buy Links with people that you have a mutual interest with, but you don’t know,” Zemm said. “You’re curating a feed of interesting things.”

While CoLinks is entering a market with newfound momentum, many entrepreneurs have already given blockchain-based social apps a shot — applications like Steemit and Bitclout gained interest initially but didn’t transfer that momentum into sustained growth.

Leveraging Coordinape’s 40,000 Users

That said, Coordinape isn’t starting from scratch with CoSoul. The project has already gained a foothold with its flagship product, Gift Circles, which allows members of a decentralized organization to pay each other through an evaluation system.

Over 40,000 people across 400 organizations have used Gift Circles, Coordinape team member Chris Eberle told The Defiant.

Eberle highlighted that over 300 employees at iFood, a Brazilian food delivery and ordering platform with no direct relationship to crypto, have been using Gift Circles for over a year.

Going forward, Zemm and Eberle hope that CoLinks can build on the momentum that Gift Circles has established.