Jul 22, 2021
The Future Is Now — What Are The Implications of Tokenization For Content Creators?
For the first time in a long time, people have realized that convenience is at the palm of their hands. We’ve turned to social media to socialize, be entertained, and learn about what the rest of the world has to offer. We no longer need to head out to a movie theatre when we can just subscribe to a streaming service. We don’t need to head out and spend money to hang out with friends. We can thoroughly research our favourite brands and products and wait for them to arrive at our doorstep. Remote work is a widely accepted medium now with the availability of online productivity tools. These were elements that were present even before the pandemic, but not at the consumption levels they’re at today. The virus has changed the way we use the internet for good. The world is changing as we know it.
Perhaps the most fundamental shift we’ve experienced since the pandemic broke out is the permanent change in media consumption patterns over the past year. People have spent much more time online than ever before. Social media and various online platforms have become such an integral part of our lives ever since stay at home orders and social distancing policies came into place.
Gig Economy vs Creator Economy
We’ve seen how the Gig Economy transformed our society since the last decade. Ride hailing created millions of jobs and allowed individuals to be ‘hired’ as one-off chauffeurs. Expensive accommodation providers had to deal with serious competition in Airbnb. Delivery services made it convenient for everyone to get what they need with a press of a button.
Where the Gig Economy focused on businesses utilizing human resources to create value-adding services, the Creator Economy hinges on community-based support. We are already seeing a record number of creators earning seven to eight figures on their platforms. What’s even more mind-blowing is that some of these brands that are raking in large revenue are managed entirely by a single person. These types of creators are aptly dubbed “Solopreneurs.”
In simplest terms, the Creator Economy is exactly what the name implies: an interrelated set of production and consumption activities in new media where their work can be monetized in many ways using various online platforms. It’s much more than a side-line or a gig, it’s an entirely new functional ecosystem with clear paths and distinctions. Content Creation and new methods of monetization will have monumental implications on society as we know it today.
Non Fungible Token (NFT)
Chief among the new technologies taking content creation to the next level are NFTs or Non Fungible Tokens. In a world where content duplication and piracy are an inevitable reality, innovation has come forward with its latest solution. Non-Fungible Tokens are digital assets that are one-of-a-kind or limited. Unlike money that can just be exchanged for the same value, NFTs can be thought of as digital trading cards. For collectors, it can mean having a certificate of authenticity for a product that they wish to buy. For artists, they can create their own mechanisms for supply and demand with the digital content that they produce. At the height of the craze in early 2021, celebrities like Paris Hilton managed to raise up to $2 million dollars on one-day art collection auctions alone — but it goes beyond that.
To be fair, asset tokenization isn’t new. In fact, physical tokens were used by the British Empire from the 17th to the 19th century in the absence of fiat money. They had no utility on their own, but were a necessary vehicle for exchanging goods and services. Similarly, in the Philippines, the Japanese issued a wartime currency known as ‘mickey mouse money’ among loclas which was used for the same purpose but had no value elsewhere.
Modern day tokenization is now virtual with built-in security features, allowing it to have perceived value regardless of geographic location. NFTs are ‘minted’ or created on what we call the blockchain, which just means that all transactions are monitored and encrypted in blocks of information that cannot be tampered with. Tokenization on the blockchain provides the transparency needed to set the stage in digitizing our global economy.
An example of a project that’s catching the attention of many as of late is called Axie Infinity. This video game is essentially a fusion of Pokemon and Digimon which allows you to purchase unique NFT-based creatures that you can use for battle to earn in-game currency called $AXS. This is their ‘stable token’ or currency that you can trade on exchanges for real money. Alternatively, you could also use experience points $SLP to ‘breed’ your Axies and create new ones that would potentially also increase in value as you progress.
Fungible Tokens — Sustainability For The Creator Economy
However enticing the concept of NFTs sound, there are still a myriad of problems that it faces. One of the major drawbacks is that while it does address authenticity issues, it still is, at the end of the day, protecting the value of an easily replicable digital asset that can be found anywhere else on the net. You can’t exactly enforce anything when it’s that easy to save an image or a video clip to a device. Theoretically, one could take a screenshot of another person’s work and tie it to a different token on another marketplace. While there is now solid evidence that people do want to own things in digital form, it’s been made crystal clear that there are ways to go before this concept is widely adopted in mainstream society.
We are now moving towards a future where everything and anything can be tokenized. Every valuable digital representation of an individual, brand, or product can be tokenized and placed on the blockchain. This is where fungible tokens come in and make more sense long-term. It’s apparent that content creators cannot consistently rely on selling exclusive goods and services if everyone else is doing it anyway — which means that there’s much less value in exclusivity if we frame it that way.
This is why we are taking a very different approach to supporting the sustainability of the Creator Economy. We are launching a marketplace for what we call Creator Tokens. Their value isn’t derived from scarcity or rarity but instead act as currencies of exchange within the BitFans platform that can be used by online communities to access exclusive perks, content, and services. Think of this as a loyalty club for content creators but with the added benefit of co-ownership of the community. Because their brand is tokenized, as the value of the creator appreciates within their digital economy, so does the community’s. This creates a form of sustainable support-based alignment within their ecosystems and enables them to forge deeper connections with audiences on an entirely new level.
Where gigs are supported by hiring people for short term tasks, creators are enabled by their communities. The goal of BitFans is to be at the forefront of the shift towards developing micro-economies for content creators. Our technology provides creators with an avenue to monetize their work independent of big tech platforms.
Hope you enjoyed reading! BitFans helps creators unlock value through amplified engagements, exciting rewards, and deeper insights. If you’re keen on learning more, come join our vibrant ecosystem of like-minded individuals and online communities. You can check out our socials via this link: https://linktr.ee/bitfans
