Masa to Launch Soulbound Token-Powered “Prosperity Passports” on Celo

Prosperity Passport, from Masa and Celo Foundation, is the first Soulbound Token-powered web3 identity solution for Celo blockchain users and developers

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Masa, the first Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible Soulbound Token (SBT) protocol, today announced its deployment on Celo, a carbon-negative, EVM-compatible blockchain. Next week, Masa will use its Soulbound Token technology to enable more than 10 million unique Celo wallets to generate a “Prosperity Passport” and claim a .celo domain name. The Prosperity Passport, developed with the Celo Foundation’s Strategy & Innovation team, will be a Soulbound Token-powered web3 identity solution, empowering users to unlock on-chain tools and real-world utility built by the mission-driven Celo ecosystem.

The launch of Prosperity Passport marks the next step in the long-standing collaboration with the Celo Foundation, dating back to 2021 when Masa won the grand prize for Celo Camp Batch 4. Prosperity Passport holders will be able to mint a variety of Soulbound Tokens, such as:

• An authenticated user verification-SBT
• A credit score SBT
• A community reputation score SBT
• A unique .celo domain name NFT

Prosperity Passport holders will be able to unlock various perks and real-world utilities from a community of Celo projects who integrate the SBT solution, such as micro-loans and universal basic income, reputation scores, and other products.

The partnership will also enable Celo developers to build upon the Masa protocol, leveraging Masa as the infrastructure to easily mint SBTs for a wide variety of use cases. Soulbound Tokens were first proposed by Vitalik Buterin in a white paper titled “Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul.” The vision of Soulbound Tokens is for a fully decentralized society to make use of non-transferrable tokens that bridge on-chain and off-chain attributes.

Masa Protocol makes minting and issuing Soulbound Tokens as easy as customizing a simple ERC-20 contract for developers, significantly reducing the complexity of aggregating, attributing and permissioning on-chain and off-chain attributes and data sources. Similarly, Masa also makes it equally as easy for existing projects to integrate SBTs into their Dapps and communities.

The upcoming launch of Prosperity Passport marks a step forward in using Soulbound Tokens for practical use-cases and real-world utility. Masa and Celo Foundation are both mission-driven organizations that work towards mainstream adoption of blockchain technology, and the Prosperity Passport is the first step towards advancing human-centric usability of web3 by everyday users around the world.

“Celo is the perfect platform for us to bring our suite of Soulbound Tokens to a new layer-1 blockchain. We’re excited to see what the talented ecosystem of Celo projects and developers build with Masa SBTs, and the practical use cases it will bring to the users in Celo’s global ecosystem,” said Calanthia Mei, co-founder at Masa. “Together with the Celo ecosystem, we will work towards our shared mission of using web3 for good, lifting up the economic lives of millions of people across the globe.”

“We look forward to this continued collaboration with Masa, and the introduction of Prosperity Passports to Celo’s mission-aligned ecosystem,” said Isha Varshney, Head of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Celo Foundation. “SBTs provide greater engagement and usability for web3 users, including measuring and tracking one’s regenerative finance (ReFi) activities across our ecosystem.”

Masa has seen a tremendous amount of interest on testnet and mainnet launches since August, with almost 250,000 Masa Soulbound Identities minted, almost 300,000 Masa .Soul Names minted, over 800 developer signups, and over 100,000 global community members. Since its Ethereum Mainnet launch in January 2023, Masa has gathered web3 community’s attention as a premiere leader in the emerging Soulbound Token space.

About Masa:

Masa is web3’s premier Soulbound Token protocol. Masa Soulbound Identity is a web3 users’ digital passport, bridging the gap between users’ on-chain and off-chain activities, personal information, authentication, and permissioned sharing. Developers are able to easily mint Soulbound Tokens leveraging Masa’s infrastructure in DeFi, NFT, GameFi and DAOs, paving the way to bring the next billion users into web3.

About Celo:

Celo is a carbon-negative, permissionless, layer-1 protocol with a rich ecosystem of global partners building innovative web3 applications within the DeFi, ReFi, and NFT sectors on Celo. Accessible to anyone with a mobile phone, the Celo ecosystem consists of a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain technology stack (the Celo Protocol), the CELO native token, and several Mento stable assets (cUSD, cEUR, cREAL) that enable anyone to use digital assets like currency. Launched on Earth Day in 2020, the open source Celo mainnet supports 1,000+ projects by developers and creators located around the world.

To learn more about Masa, please visit www.masa.finance.

To learn more about Celo, please visit www.celo.org.

Contacts

Rachel Saulpaugh

[email protected]
(408) 580-7642