Create Soulbound Tokens (SBT) Without Coding

A step-by-step tutorial on how to mint SBT tokens without programming.

Soulbound token is still in its infancy in the blockchain fraternity. But if you wish to be the early bird that catches the worm, this hands-on tutorial explains how you can mint this revolutionary token without writing a single line of code.

A tutorial is always best to follow with an example. Let’s imagine we’re a game company and wish to reward our gamers with game achievements stored in soulbound tokens. With soulbound tokens, also known as SBT, the holder of these tokens cannot transfer the tokens to anyone else. It is essentially a non-transferable NFT token, hence, the term soulbound.

Mintnite currently supports the minting of soulbound tokens on Ethereum and virtually all Ethereum-compatible (EVM) networks. Here’s how you do it.

Step 1. Connect Your Wallet

Go to Mintnite.io and connect your Web3 wallet. We currently support most major Ethereum-compatible wallets such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Rainbow and more. Do ensure your wallet is already accessing your preferred blockchain network.

Step 2. Create a Smart Contract

Every SBT token is created by a smart contract. Thus, we need to create one before we can begin minting.

There are three types of smart contracts Mintnite supports.

• ERC20 smart contract – This fungible token contract allows you to mint and transfer tokens to anyone. This is the standard token used by cryptocurrencies. Recipients of the tokens can transfer to someone else, or burn the token.
• ERC721 NFT smart contract – Non-fungible token (NFT) contract allows you to mint and transfer NFT tokens to anyone. Recipients of the tokens can also transfer to someone else, or burn the token.
• ERC721 SBT smart contract – Soulbound token (SBT) contract allows you to mint and transfer tokens to anyone. However, the recipients of the tokens cannot transfer to anyone else. But they can burn the token.

You should select SBT smart contract. And give your contract a name and symbol where they shall appear on the blockchain explorer. The contract name should represent your company’s name or project. In this case, it can be your game title. And the symbol can be the game initial.

Please prepare some native tokens to pay for gas. You could always use test tokens on a blockchain test network (known as testnet) before you commit to minting actual SBT tokens. Once you confirmed the transaction on your wallet, your contract will be deployed on your desired chain.

Upon successful deployment, you will receive a receipt like below.

Step 3. Mint Your Soulbound Token

Here’s the juicy part. We start by having to select between a public or private SBT token. A public token is visible to everyone where the file content, name, and description are uploaded to the blockchain and decentralized storage (IPFS). It is also listed and searchable on Mintnite. A private token, however, is only visible to you and only the file hash is recorded in the blockchain without the file, name or description. It is not searchable or listed on our site. For this tutorial, we shall select public token.

Please include a title and description for the SBT token. The name can be like “Constructor Leadership” achievement.

Next, let’s upload a payload into our token. For a game achievement, it can be a virtual badge (image in PNG, JPG, WEBP, GIF format) or a video clip (MP4, MOV, WMV) from the game itself. We are using IPFS decentralized data storage network to store this content. You may upload more than one content in a token. The token shall contain metadata (JSON) that lists the files it stores.

You may also directly include an existing URL to your content, if you wish.

Before minting, you will be presented with a summary of your token prior to minting. If all looks fin, go ahead and mint it.

Step 4. Transfer SBT Token to Recipient (Optional)

This optional step is to send this token to another wallet. Go to the tokens management page and click on the transfer button for the token you wish to send. Then, fill in the recipient’s wallet address, and hit Transfer.

Once the soulbound token is received by the recipient, they cannot retransfer it out from their wallet. However, they may burn the token if they choose to do so.

Burn SBT Tokens In Recipient’s Wallet (Optional)

With ERC721 SBT Access Control contract on Mintnite, the contract owner has the option to burn SBT in respective token holders’ wallets. This allows more control offers token distribution and management.