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- Raoul Pal, former hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs spoke to Insider about the outlook for the crypto industry.
- He said social, or community, tokens have the potential to "disrupt businesses' like Disney.
- He said his RealVision firm will launch a community token within the next year.
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Social, or community, tokens are going to be the next big development in the crypto market and have the power to disrupt all kinds of traditional industries, according to RealVision CEO Raoul Pal.
Pal, who used to run hedge fund sales at Goldman Sachs, before retiring at 36 and devoting himself to other investments, told Insider in an interview he's so sure social tokens will boom that his company is planning to launch one over the next year.
Community tokens are a form of cryptocurrency that are linked to a company, an organization or even a person. The idea is the holders of that token will get perks from the issuer, such as exclusive content, access to group chats, or digital merchandise.
"It's the biggest thing I've ever seen, we all know how big crypto is, but within crypto, community tokens are going to change all business models," Pal said.
"When you realise that tokenizing things changes the equation – it will not be long before Disney tokenize, because they have super fans, who want access to parts of the community. So you could have a Star Wars community, or a Disney animation community and people are fanatical about this," he said.
A sense of community has been a big factor in the growing adoption and popularity of bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value.
Pal said he believes the market in social tokens will go from being a "billion dollar" business to a "trillion dollar" one in the next five to 10 years, so much so that he's planning one of his own.
"I'm trying to work on it. We have a great, amazing community of super smart people all around the world. They write to us all the time saying please can you create a token, we want to be a part of this, we want to be part of this kind of expert network of people that love finance and, you know, love investing and learning," Pal said.
Like many other digital assets, social tokens are decentralized and run on a blockchain network, much like traditional cryptocurrencies, or digital collectible items like non-fungible tokens.
One example is the Keisuke Honda's KSK Honda Coin launched by Keisuke Honda, a professional Japanese footballer and manager. This token gives fans access to exclusive video updates and private chats.
Another notable example is the $RAC token by musician and producer RAC. The community token enables his fans access to private discussions, merchandise and other exclusive content.
"$RAC is a token built on ethereum that I want to give to fans who support the RAC project, and who want to build it alongside me. By rewarding my most loyal fans, we can create a community where tokens unlock access to various perks and exclusive content," RAC said in a blog in 2020.
Anyone can create a community token. Pal outlined the steps that a person, or company, would need to take to create an effective one.
"You need to give [holders] benefits of community, utility of community so that they get discounted tickets, ability to get extra merchandise, ability to get access to NFTs, ability to have meet and greets, ability to chat with the artists, you need to generate all that ecosystem where everybody can connect and bond and everybody feels close to the center of the community, the influencer," he said.