BULB: Read and Write to Earn

BULB is exactly the kind of platform I am interested in here at Future Earn.

I’ve set out to explore a future that involves getting paid to do daily activities, so receiving rewards for reading and writing is bang on what I’m looking for.

When I first saw ‘Walk-to-Earn’, I remember thinking - if they can track your steps and reward you, then they could do the same for any activity performed on the phone: listening to music, reading a book, writing a review etc. I see a future where every mainstream media outlet creates their own token for community rewards. For now, pioneers like BULB are breaking new ground.

They have essentially re-created blogging using web3, meaning that it’s built on a blockchain (in this case Solana) and can be rewarded with cryptocurrency. It’s like a rewards programme, but the reward currency is publicly tradeable meaning you can sell it, and its value can move up / down.

What’s impressive is the thought they’ve put into the activity / reward economy, making a big effort to get the balance between contribution, incentivisation and quality right. The more I used the platform, the more I discovered extra layers of complexity with a system that rewards consistent use and tries to weed out inauthentic actions.

In terms of progress, BULB reported hitting 50,000 users and 23,000 blog posts published by February 2023.

Overview of the Platform

Signing up is an easy process and does require having a crypto wallet (I used the Phantom browser extention which is easy enough to set up for the uninitiated).

Once in, I was asked to choose topics of interest (minimum 3) to help curate my news feed. And once inside, the platform design is minimalist with a nice balance between browsing articles and all the additional functionality you learn over time.

The main activities are read and write. But they have built out a clever range of web3-based ways to engage which give the platform much more depth.

These include:

• BULB points (the points system associated with all activities which you earn and ultimately convert to BULB tokens).

• BULB tokens (ability to earn, trade and stake).

• NFTs (BULBmoji NFTs which give you extra abilities - like baseball cards that come with player abilities).

• Boosts (ability to use BULB to pay for boosts to promote your articles).

• Energy (introducing the concept of energy, which acts as a cap on how much activity you can do in a period of time and re-charges after 8 hours)

• Premium posts (giving authors the ability to paywall a certain article, and readers an ability to buy access)

All of these are designed to encourage activity (ability to earn), encourage use of the token (buying NFTs, boosts and energy) and controlling people’s ability to game the system (energy = cap on activity).

Although reading to earn is free, you will discover that to actually write and comment on articles you first need to buy BULB tokens (2,000 to write plus 500 to comment). I swapped 0.02 SOL for 2,661 BULB using the internal swap page. At the time of writing, that cost USD$2.61. The swap functionality is provided via a 3rd party site called Jupiter which I have used a lot so any first time users should feel comfortable knowing it is legitimate.

Read to Earn

Reading to earn is an easy process. Every time you login you see a feed of articles according to your preferences. At the top of the list you can click on ‘recommended’, ‘Latest’, ‘Premium’ and ‘Following’.

When you click into the article it is like any other blog, except there are some unique extras:

• Authors Details: their name (which you can click to see their profile) and wallet address.

• BULB Points: this shows how many times the article has been read, ie. how popular it is.

• Reader Actions: at the end of the article you can click on ‘read’, ‘wow’ and ‘meh’ - this records your action as a reader (note to the team at BULB it was not obvious to me initially that I needed to do this, even reading FAQs). When you click on one of the choices you earn BULB points and expend energy.

• Tip: You can use BULB tokens to tip the author which is a great concept (Solana and USDC are also options for payment).

• Other: More typical options which include a share button, save button and report button.

One comment I will make is that the quality of the writing across the site is average - based on what I saw - and largely looks like people writing very standard articles on various topics. With AI bots like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the risk of these articles being artificially generated is going to exponentially increase, something I’m sure the team at BULB will be thinking about.

Where it started to make sense to me was when I read an article that was time sensitive. It related to a project I was already following that launched an event, and someone on BULB posted a useful summary. This meant I was reading something I really wanted to read, and being rewarded for it. I also liked that I could click on this author, take a look at their other content, and click follow.

In other words, a lot of the content now is generic articles like ‘How to start a business’, but if it increases more time sensitive content that you can’t find elsewhere, this will significantly improve the experience. Imagine X (Twitter) if you got paid for reading your feed.

The Comments function is initially locked and as mentioned above requires 500 BULBS before you can start commenting. Once unlocked it’s like any other commenting function, although as I will explain below, it’s worthwhile making comments longer than 1-2 words.

Write to Earn

To save time, I used AI Bot Claude to help me draft my article (I also disclosed that at the end of the article…. and to clarify will do the same if I ever use it at Future Earn). I also wanted to call out my use of AI to see if the moderators or system catches or even prohibits it (I saw nothing on AI on their FAQs or Code of Conduct).

Once I had inserted the main content text, a button called ‘BULB AI’ popped up offering to write me a heading. Later while editing, if I selected any text it would also give me the option to paraphrase which was helpful.

When I tried to publish, I didn’t have the required energy in the bank so I had to save the post as a draft, and wait for the following day before I could proceed.

Once I was able to click publish, there were a few final steps which worked really well:

• Free / Premium: you can choose whether to charge to read (I chose free).

• Header Image: select a final image to accompany the post.

• Description: you need to write a quick description, but they provided an option to use BULB AI, which I did, and it immediately produced a suitable blurb.

• Declaration: confirm the work isn’t plagarised, is spam, or contains illegal content. (question - is using AI to write content plagarism?).

Click ‘Publish’ and a message appeared saying ‘you can earn up to 75 points and will use 30 energy’. This is immediately followed by a pop-up option to ‘boost post’ - which I didn’t do.

That’s it. Overall a pretty easy process to write a post, with a simple editor and straightforward process. I also immediately received an email telling me how to ensure I get maximum points with a list of to-do’s including:

• Spelling: checking for spelling and grammar.

• Structure: double checking paragraph structure to make sure you break things up and avoid long paragraphs.

• Headings: using appropriate headings.

• Photos / Links: adding photos and links.

• Updated Bio: add a profile photo and bio.

So clearly the ‘up to 75 points’ relates to the quality of the article, based on the points above. This also relates to BULB’s overall approach to encourage good actors and discourage bad actors (discussed below).

Overall, a pretty slick process to publish with a clear process and good instructions. It did however take all 30 energy points leaving me empty with an 8 hour recharge time. While I haven’t used the platform enough to find the right balance, this means either waiting and being unable to engage (even read an article) for 8 hours or being forced to buy more BULB.

My sense is this feels a bit restrictve - ie. I understand limiting people’s ability to write (and potentially SPAM), but I would have thought it should always be possible to read articles thereby staying on the platform, otherwise it actually pushes you away

Earning Rewards

To truly understand how BULB works and whether it is a worthwhile investment, you need to dig into all of the extra functionalities I mentioned above - essentially, the BULB economy and what you can do beyond reading / writing.

According to their white paper, the BULB Token was launched on 13 April 2024 (Token Generation Event = TGE). They initially minted 1 billion tokens, then burned 250 million leaving a total of 750 milllion for future fixed supply.

As the above graph indicates, 33% of the total token allocation is for the team and advisors. This is quite a lot for newer projects (ie. earlier crypto projects favoured the teams in this way) so it would be good to understand from the team the logic behind this.

Earning BULB tokens is not a straightforward process and involves:

• Earning BULB points

• Earning BULB Tokens (which are earned by earning points)

• Utilising BULB Moji (NFTs)

In addition to standard reading and writing, you can also earn weekly bonuses by completing extra or assigned tasks as outlined below:

BULBMojis

BULBmoji NFTs are like collectors cards which gives you extra abilities. This is a typical way for NFTs to be used in the crypto world - create an image (see the cute image 2 images below) that can be bought / traded / kept in a wallet, and assign it certain attributes which creates value.

On the BULB platform, they have categorised their NFTs into two types:

• Ability: Writer, Sharer, Moderator, Talker, Reader, Reactor.

• Rarity: Common (50%), Rare (30%), Epic (15%), Legendary (4%), Champion (1%).

As you can guess, the ability impacts what you do on the platform and the rarity increases that impact. So if you own a reader BULBmoji you will get extra points for reading, and if the rarity of your NFT is higher, those points have a higher multiplier. The multiple factor ranges from 1.20x - 4.60x (meaning that if the action was earning you 10 points, with a maximum multiplier effect you would earn 46 points).

The BULBmoji also gives you an energy bonus, meaning you use less energy to do things. The BULBmoji below is a reader (meaning you get extra points for reading), is common (so the multiplier is 1.20x) and gives a energy saving rate of 3%. You can also see below that the price is 0.35 SOL (Solana Token), which at the time of writing is USD~$48.

As you can see, there is already decent value for an entry level BULBmoji. This means there is a double play to owning these things:

1. You earn points / BULBs at a higher rate through reading / writing etc; and

2. You can upgrade your BULBmoji over time by paying more BULB (which you could buy or earn), making it move valuable and building a set of collectibles that you can sell down the track.

This then gives you two options to monetise: earn BULB (which are tradeable) and build valuable NFTs which can also be sold on the the market. So the more you invest - both in time and by buying / developing BULBmoji’s - the more you are likely to see longer term rewards.

Convert Article to NFT

You also have the ability to convert your article to an NFT. This allows you to sell the rights to the article, with the new buyer earning any BULB points from the time of sale.

This is an extremely interesting functionality which is a bit like allowing a writer to act more like an artist - ie. create multiple copies of the same article and sell them to others, then benefit from further views / sales etc in future (earn royalites).

If you think about where this could go in future (on and off the BULB platform), it points to a world where any knowledge product would be minted as an NFT and as it is shared, sold, updated or even modified the connection to the original artist is recorded on the blockchain, and royalties flow each and every time.

Good / Bad Actors

One of the big risks with any ‘Act-to-Earn’ platform is the ability to game the system. ie. work out how to participate beyond natural levels to earn more tokens than someone who is using the system normally.

Think about a ‘walk-to-earn’ app where someone puts their phone on a stand that mimics the movement of walking.

The BULB team has designed a system to address this by developing a Dynamic Reward System. This essentially looks for real interactions versus fake ones, based on a system which assesses each post, read, write or comment based on a list of positive or negative factors.

The equation is as follows: BULBmoji points = Multiplier (M) x BULBmoji Value (where 0 < M < 1).

The multiplier is based on:

• Uniqueness: original and thoughtful content and engagement.

• Relevance: posts and comments that are relevant to the title or original post.

• Length: longer form content generally correlates to quality and effort.

• Time: engaging newer content is supported in an effort to support newer writers.

• Spam: repeating actions is penalized.

• Integrity: posts and comments that violet the code of conduct are severly penalised.

You can see from the image above that depending on the M value ascribed, a post that can earn up to 75 points could get anything from 0.75 points up to 67.5 points. So the swing based on quality is massive.

There is also a report to earn governance system which rewards users for reporting bad behaviour. Again, a neat system where users spend 2 energy to report an issue, and if enough people also report it so that it gets banned, they get a maximum of 8 BULB points.

(Side note: imagine if Facebook employed a report to earn functionality to remove illegal content.)

How Much can I Earn

I’ve only been using the platform for about a week so will need to review this again after a longer period. However, after a week which has included one post, 1-2 comments and 5-6 reads my stats are as follows:

• 674 place our of 52,842

• 52 BULB points earned (that suggests my post got about 30-40 points out of a possible 75).

• 185.7 BULB tokens earned (remember these are the ones which have monetary value).

The one thing I can’t seem to find is an exact breakdown of exactly how I’ve earned those points. I think this kind of transparency would be good so that I can have a better idea how to approve.

What the above leaderboard shows is that the top earner has generated 35K BULB tokens which is USD$37 over a 1 week period.

That is not a bad outcome if you think that $37 / week is USD$1,924 year for reading and writing. Granted, that’s a small amount for some but a very good amount for others. And it provides the nuggests I’m looking for to prove out the theory that we will all be earning extra income in future from 20+ daily activities.

A look at the top 3 on the leaderboard and they have only written 1-2 articles in that time, so they must be earning points from other activities like reading, commenting, moderating and possessing strong BULBmojis which enhance their earning rate.

Again, keep in mind that the BULB token value will fluctuate with the growth, use and success of the platform so if you take a long term view, and aim to collect tonnes of tokens, it’s not impossible the value will eventually improve just like a company’s share price and your investment pays off.

At the time of writing, 1 BULB token = 0.001126 USD. If we use the top earners as an example, and say the token value goes up to 0.1c then 30,000 BULB tokens would be worth $3,500. For a week’s blogging and interaction.

Bulb Staking has also been recently introduced. For those not familiar with the term, that is the same as depositing your money in the bank to recieve interest. In crypto, staking refers to the same thing - you stake your crypto to receive more of it.

Current yield on the platform is >60% annually which is a good return. Based on the current top performer earning $1,924 if they were to stake 100% it would add an additional USD$1,154 a year. That is a great return.

There are so many good writers on platforms like Medium and Substack, and with monetization based on paywalled content and advertising I think there would be many of them that would convert to BULB if they realised the earning potential and co-ownership of the platform via the BULB token.

Team

The team is a small group of young professionals with the 3 co-founders based in Sydney, Perth and Hong Kong (Linkedin links below):

• Ronson Chau

• Johnson Chau

• Alex Rose

One thing I really about the team is that they publish transparent updates. Here is a general one from February 2024 and a more personal one from Ronson (Co-Founder).

These guys are all working on BULB part time and from different locations, so they have achieved a lot with that setup which bodes well for the future.

Conclusion

For a project the founders describe as starting in their garage, BULB is a massively ambitious attempt to imagine what reading and writing could look like in the future. As we move towards web3 adoption, many web2 projects will get replaced by those where users can own and earn community tokens, to take part in and get rewarded for their contribution. We will own our content (ie. the ability to mint articles discussed above), and our actions will be rewarded transparently… moving away from the current model of centralised platforms owning and sellling our data to advertisers.

The team at BULB have seen this future and executed a really strong model of how this could work.

Avid readers will find some of the current content underwhelming, but writers should see this as a chance to embrace web3 and if nothing else, start to experiment with tokens, NFTs and ‘write-to-earn’. For everyone else, I’d recommend taking a look and thinking about BULB in the context of where we are going. It’s early, but it represents the beginning of a very different future for content creators.