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SMBC Partners With HashPort on Soulbound Tokens

Validated Individual Expert

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) and its consolidated subsidiary Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) have entered into a basic agreement on a business partnership with HashPort and its consolidated subsidiaries HashPalette and HashBank.

Overview of Basic Agreement

  • SMBC Group and HashPort Group have been discussing the launch of a joint business for developing a safe and secure Web3 economic zone since signing a basic agreement in July 2022.
  • Based on the outcomes of the aforementioned discussions, the parties concluded this basic agreement to commence specific deliberations toward launching a new joint business centered on practical use of Soulbound Tokens (SBTs).
  • As the first phase of demonstration testing under this basic agreement, SMBC Group will issue SBTs on a trial basis with technical support from HashPort Group through the end of March 2023.
  • As the second phase based on the results of the above testing, demonstration testing will be conducted envisioning scenarios in which SBTs are used as proof of behavior/career. Consideration will also be given in this phase to carrying out testing to produce case studies of SBT utilization with the cooperation of companies considering forming and marketing fan communities using tokens.
  • In addition, the two parties will also consider undertaking content business associated with NFTs and developing infrastructure for the Web3 economic zone to encourage the spread of the token business both in Japan and overseas.

Background

  • SBTs are non-transferable NFTs that are issued as tokens indicating the personal history and activities of the individual holding the SBT wallet. The wallets in which the various SBTs are stored are called “souls” because they represent the identity of the owners of the wallets.
  • With more and more people taking on side jobs, personal technology and knowledge sharing services gaining traction, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)emerging, and other changes taking place in society, it has become common practice for individuals to assume diverse roles and personalities within society. It is expected in this new society that each individual will be able to control which personality he/she displays in each community in which he/she participates. SBTs satisfy these new social needs through the use of multiple “souls”.
  • Partnering with HashPort Group to conduct research on SBTs that can be put to practical use in future is a meaningful initiative by the SMBC Group to help the Web3 economy catch on more widely in Japan.

Example of SBT Usage

  • Suppose, for example, that there is a user who has a soul as a working adult and a soul as a music fan at the same time. If this user wants to prove his/her skills and work history when changing jobs, he/she can simultaneously prove his/her identity and his/her career information associated with them by allowing his/her employer to reference the SBTs held in his/her working soul as well as his/her personal information such as name and address stored outside the blockchain.
  • On the other hand, if a user wants to share his/her fan activity history within an artist’s fan community to prove his/her loyalty as a fan, he/she can allow the community to reference only those SBTs held within the user’s soul as a music fan to show how many live shows he/she has attended, how many times he/she has played the artist’s music, etc., while remaining anonymous.

Source: SMBC press release

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