Coub, a popular video-sharing platform with over 100 million active users, has announced its entry into the Web3 space. With a decade of experience in social media, Coub aims to offer its users a new way to interact with content and earn rewards through its watch-to-earn (W2E) program. This program allows users to create and watch videos on the platform while earning rewards for each like, view, comment, or share.
Thanks to the inherent capabilities of blockchain technology, revenue sharing has become much more reliable in the Web3 era. This has given rise to the action-to-earn trend, with the gaming industry embracing play-to-earn (P2E), where players earn from the overall revenue of an online video game by participating in in-game activities and trading game-specific nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
Coub’s venture into the Web3 space involves turning the video content on the platform into NFTs. Users can create looped, 10-second audiovisual mashups, eponymously named “coubs,” by mixing and matching online videos available across the internet with simple-to-use tools provided by Coub. With the introduction of Web3 capabilities, both viewers and creators can start earning rewards from their activities on the platform.
Users will be able to mint coubs as NFTs for free, which would automatically generate W2E rewards as the video continues getting views, likes, and other interactions. By putting videos on the built-in NFT Coub Marketplace, users can sell or auction NFT coubs, with all future W2E rewards on-chain split between the author and buyers.
To ensure quality content on the NFT Coub Marketplace by avoiding spam reuploads or ghost-minting, Coub requires a listing fee for unlocking W2E rewards for NFT coubs. After minting an NFT for free, the creator can submit it to the validators network, where validators vote to accept or reject NFT coubs. If accepted, the NFT coub becomes eligible to generate W2E rewards, and the listing fee goes to Coub’s W2E Treasury. If validators vote against listing the NFT coub, it becomes only available for watching and trading, with the listing fee being sent back to the creator.
In addition, Coub seeks to make the new platform into a community-driven Web3 ecosystem with the launch of CoubDAO. The COUB token will be the native token used for voting and validating rights, as well as trading NFTs on the platform. Community members will earn vCOUB as the W2E reward token, which will also be exchangeable for COUB.
Overall, by applying Web3 fundamentals to its established user base, Coub uses its decade-long expertise in online videos to reshape the social media landscape with a community-centric approach. The watch-to-earn program is expected to revolutionize the way people interact with content on social media platforms by offering rewards for simply watching or creating video content.
