The creator economy is booming, not only for those creating videos and streams, but writers, artists, musicians and everyone in between. Creatives are taking advantage of new technologies to help them grow their audience quickly and generate new sources of revenue, outside of traditional advertising and brand deals.
Even the smallest creators are building engaged audiences to support their passions. Emerging technologies are giving creators new tools to not only survive but thrive.
Cryptocurrency has added a new level of audience engagement and monetization. Coupled with the decentralization movement and Creator Coins, there are more ways than ever for fans to play a role in the success of their favorite artists.
As John Koetsier explains in a recent Cryptonized episode, “You can think of it in the same vein as something like a Patreon or even a Substack. A Creator Coin is a crypto that generally is convertible to mainline cryptocurrencies like Ethereum or Bitcoin. [After purchasing], you essentially buy into a creator's economy, maybe get special access to what they do, maybe get early access to what they do, maybe just support them and other things like that.”
Platforms like Substack and Patreon empower creators to monetize their audiences, granting community members access to exclusive content not found on traditional channels.
These platforms helped jumpstart the decentralization movement by allowing creators to be paid directly by their fans, instead of relying solely on sponsorships and advertising revenue.
Creatives can now start to cut out the middleman who could censor or deplatform them based on their viewpoints. Creator coins bring creators and their audiences closer together.
Creator coins are a blockchain-backed currency that bring creators and supporters together.
John Koetsier’s $SMRT coin unlocks many perks for the holder and fuels his Tech First podcast. “You can sponsor Tech First with $SMRT coin. In fact, that's the only way you can sponsor [it]. You can get special access to a Slack channel where you can talk to me. There’s a supporter category as well. There's also an NFT category with that and I've just started releasing my first collection probably a month ago. I'll [also] be releasing another NFT collection that'll be one for each episode, with something cool and unique about what relates to the topic of that episode.”
As blockchain technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, new and innovative ways to utilize it are appearing, further disrupting the systems of old and empowering industries to change the way they operate.