Recently, the terms “decentralized creator economy” and “decentralized creator economy” have become quite popular, partly due to the explosive developments we have witnessed in the digital art NFT arena in recent months. Artwork is being “minted” left, right, and centre and sold for exorbitant sums on multiple online marketplaces, including eBay and Amazon.
Decentralized creator economies are based on the same smart contract technology that has already propelled the recent boom in non-traditional media (NFT) in visual arts. However, it provides a great deal more.
The creator economy covers all forms of digital content creation, whether social, artistic, technical, or other content. A new generation of smart contracts is being used to create platforms where no centralized authority has a say in how a maker chooses to monetize their content or to whom that content is shown.
The latest centralized alternatives to traditional ad-run creator platforms such as As youtube or Instagram — such as Patreon, which provides creators with a paywall option — but these platforms still retain complete control on the distribution and commercialization (monetization) of the content produced by the creators they host.
When it comes to intellectual property, taking a decentralized approach would outcome in even greater power and liberty being granted to creators in terms of their intellectual property.
There is no longer a need for a centralized middle man — such as a platform such as YouTube — to end up making decisions on behalf of the content creator and their followers because decentralized or blockchain-based platforms allow creators to promote and monetize the content they create.
In this article, we will discuss some of the top platforms that have the potential to significantly expand the decentralized space for the creator economy in the coming months, as detailed below.
How Might Blockchain Benefit Content Creators, Specifically?
Decentralization, enabled by blockchain technology, disrupts the dominance of social media giants, who currently consume nearly all of the advertising money in the world. It is possible to create transparent content production platforms using blockchain technology – benefits for content creators, whether monetary or otherwise, are proportional to their content’s impact. In this section, we will look at fifteen such platforms.
1. Theta
It is a decentralized P2P (peer-to-peer) video transmission method that makes use of a new local blockchain that is driven entirely by users to distribute video content. The procedure ensures that all players in the content-consumption distribution network reap the same benefits from the process.
Viewers can earn points by voluntarily sharing extra bandwidth and energy and actively participating in the network’s operations. As a result, high-quality, faster video streams are delivered without the need for video platforms to invest in costly infrastructure. By allowing consumers to act as relays for video streams, the centralized video delivery model is broken, resulting in more revenue being returned to producers and platforms.
According to its website, Theta is backed by some renowned mentors, including Steve Chen (co-founder of YouTube), Justin Kan (co-founder of Twitch), and others. Moreover, it has some well-known industry validators, including Google, Binance, Sony Europe, and Samsung.
2. Flixxo
Flixxo is a decentralized video distribution network that makes use of blockchain technology to free video content from the claws of YouTube, Amazon, and Facebook, among other platforms. There is an unfettered monopoly on video material in terms of its creation and distribution as well as its compensation and monetization by these corporations.
Flixxo is upending this system by enabling content creators to earn revenue directly from customers and connecting artists more closely with marketers and other businesses. Flixxo makes it P2P by eliminating middlemen from the process, which is the fundamental idea of decentralization caused by blockchain technology.
FLIXX, the native token of Flixxo, is a cryptocurrency that makes use of Bitcoin technology to facilitate transactions among Flixxo users. Flixx tokens can be used to watch videos, exchange with other users, and even spend outside the Flixxo app, depending on the user’s preferences.
3. Steemit
Steemit operates as a decentralized social media application (DApp). However, the interface is similar to Reddit, with various forums for clubs and popular postings, but with a concentration on cryptocurrencies instead of the traditional web. It enables the growth of cryptocurrency communities, in which members are rewarded for contributing their thoughts and opinions. Three types of tokens are used to power the overall Steemit economy.
Steemit is a social media platform where people may earn money by posting, commenting, and upvoting other people’s posts.
Following that is STEEM POWER, which implies that you can invest or rev up STEEM in order to get a larger say on the platform. Finally, there are the STEEM Dollars (SBD), which function similarly to a stable coin in that they are pegged to the US Dollar.
Since June 2018, the blockchain of the Steemit community has documented and paid out over $60 million to members who have contributed content and interacted with other members of the community. According to the website, it also boasts of having over 1 million users.
4. Content Box
A unified payment service, a shared content pool, and a shared user pool are some of the tools that Content Box (BOX) uses to help break the big shark’s monopoly in the online content industry. It relieves users of the burden of bearing the biggest chunk of the production costs as well as the threat of infringement. User participation in curating content is also rewarded. Profit-sharing disputes and accounting and reporting costs are reduced for industry participants as a result of the process.
The access of monetization channels for content creators increases, the payback period becomes relatively short, and Content Box guarantees that payments are never left unpaid indefinitely.
The blockchain, which is both fast and secure, is at the heart of these solutions. It is used to carry out a multi-party predicated payment system and identity and acknowledgment service that can be used across various applications. Small and Midsized content creators will find it simple to set up the solution.
5. Mycelia For Music
Mycelia For Music is, at its heart, an R&D (research and development) center for musicians and music producers. It guarantees that earnings will be distributed fairly among all stakeholders throughout the life-cycle of musical content development. Furthermore, it supports creators with their musical works’ metadata and monetary value.
It is the vision of Grammy-winning musician Imogen Heap, who founded Mycelia For Music, to provide the resources necessary for music artists to advance in their respective professions.
Her team makes certain that all persons participating in the process receive proper acknowledgement and compensation. It also aims to make sure that the music services business’s commercial, ethical, and technical standards are maintained while the industry continues to innovate.
The project is overseen by a team of creative, technologists, and industry professionals who have come together with the shared goal of investigating innovative technical solutions that have the potential to have a beneficial impact on the industry.
6. Pixsy
By copyrighting their photographs and collecting what is rightly theirs, Pixsy hopes to assist original creators, particularly graphic designers and photographers, in protecting their visual content and maximizing their earnings.
It accomplishes this by integrating picture scanning technologies with a staff of legal professionals to assist content providers in combating image infringement and piracy in general. Pixsy boasts an easy-to-use, quick-to-setup interface that makes it simple to get started, and the company claims to cover the entire infringement case procedure if they do not win.
Following its recent merger with Binded, a blockchain-based picture copyright platform, Pixsy was named the finest online image protection service in the world by ImageProtect. Every image you upload to your Binded vault is assigned a unique fingerprint permanently stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. Copyright certificates are issued to creators as proof of ownership, protecting them against copyright infringement.
7. Mediachain
Using blockchain technology, Mediachain is able to seamlessly link music to its creator while also providing background information on the music. To have a more fair listening experience, the autonomous, blockchain-based music library automatically provides listeners with information about the author, producer, and music’s lyrics.
Music streaming service Spotify purchased Mediachain in 2017, intending to develop technology that more accurately identifies music to the rights holders and musicians whose work plays on its platform.
8. Brave Browser
By seeing advertising that respects user privacy, users can earn BAT tokens, which they can then purchase items on the Brave website. Users using web browsers retain complete discretion over the number of advertisements they wish to see/hour. Browser users can show their support for their favorite web authors by claiming these incentives.
Users will be pleased to know that Brave really does have the strongest confidentiality preserving network connectivity with its server of all major browsers and addons, which is especially important in this age of the internet where internet privacy and private details are becoming increasingly important concerns.
Brave protects user data by blocking all advertisements and trackers, randomizing fingerprints, blocking third-party storage, and other measures.
There are presently more than 38 million users, and they would be able to use their tokens to purchase premium content, gift cards, and other items, among other things. Creators will soon be able to include Brave Ads, which will allow them to make more ad money than they now do with existing models. Since its inception, over 300,000 creators have participated in the Brave Rewards platform.
9. Privy
Privi is also a decentralized app ecosystem that is still in its testing stage but is expected to launch in autumn. It will bring a wide range of innovative, creator-driven platforms to the table. So far, the testnet versions of Privi Pix (for digital painting), Privi Trax (for music streaming), and Privi Exchange (for trading app tokens inside the Privi ecosystem) have been released.
However, there is much more to come: nine additional apps are listed in their app store, including Privi Flix (similar to Netflix but decentralized) and Privi Social, a potential competitor to BitClout.
With the sheer breadth of what is available in the Privi metaverse, the existing decentralized participants in the creative economy gain a thrilling competitive advantage while also providing a complete ecosystem for creators in a wide range of fields. If everything goes according to plan, Privi could quickly establish itself as one of the most important decentralized ecosystems, allowing for seamless interchange between its various platforms and tokens.
10. Gaze TV
GazeTV operates as a creative social platform with its own token rewards and reward capabilities, which allows it to stand out from the competition. The platform’s eponymous coin allows both authors and audiences to communicate with one another directly, without the need for a third party to act as a middleman in the transaction.
The total number of GAZE tokens available is one billion. This cryptocurrency may be purchased on exchanges such as LATOKEN and ZC.com in trading pairs of ETH and USDT.
11. Fluz Fluz
Fluz Fluz’s e-commerce platform integrates blockchain technology with social media. Shopping at some of the world’s largest firms, like Starbucks, Nike, Disney, and Uber, earns you cash-back incentives through the company’s cash-back program.
Fluz Fluz users should invite friends, share material, and expand their networks in order to reap the greatest amount of cash-back incentives. According to the company, users can also earn more than 8percentage cashback on their personal and community purchases by increasing their social media platforms.
Whether you’re purchasing online, in-store, or using Fluzpay — a cryptocurrency-based pre-paid retail balance card — Fluz Fluz provides cash-back possibilities. Members of Fluz Fluz who expand their social media networks may earn up to 100 times more cash back than those who use other applications.
12. Mirror. xyz
Speaking of decentralized writing platforms, mirror. xyz is practically the decentralized version of Medium or Substack, to name a couple of examples. Its blockchain-based strategy to online publishing allows writers to monetize their work, which is then minted as an NFT once it has been released. Individuals can then resell this piece of work and have it published in other publications, resulting in a royalty fee being paid to the writer. Crowdfunding allows writers to generate cash while simultaneously allowing investors to hold a fraction of the final piece and receive a portion of any additional money generated by the piece, among other benefits.
13. You42
The goal of You42 is to provide creators and influencers with the tools they need to enhance the monetization of creative work without sacrificing control. The platform includes a mixture of the absolute highest quality of music, video, and games in terms of content. The network features its own cryptocurrency, the U42 token, which is an ERC20 token that was created on the Ethereum blockchain.
The token facilitates the purchase of advertisements and marketing on the site by users. The tokens can also be used to gain digital credits, which can then purchase content and items from third-party vendors.
14. Dot Blockchain Media
Dot Blockchain Media is a music industry rights management solution that uses blockchain technology. The blockchain used by the company maintains an immutable record of artist, publisher, and label rights, allowing royalty payments to be distributed evenly in real-time. In addition, the company provides blockchain solutions to musicians, allowing them to synchronize their songwriting and playing rights with their music when it is streamed on internet streaming services.
Dot Blockchain Media watermarks songs, allowing listeners to access a wealth of background info while also documenting the authentic streaming payments made to the artist.
Dot Blockchain Media has established a partnership with Cardstack, a network that collects data from a variety of sources and consolidates it into a single location for easy access. The firms will cooperate on developing a blockchain-based system that will appropriately pay musicians based on streaming data from a variety of music outlets.
15. Aioz Network (AIOZ)
This network, known as the Aioz network (AIOZ), is a layer-1 blockchain-based network that heralds the dawn of a new age in online streaming.
In addition to being a video-sharing network, AIOZTube also assists creators in converting high-quality content into bitcoin. AIOZ OTT is a subscription video service that allows individuals to watch their favorite movies and shows while paying for them with coins from their AIOZ Wallet. At the end of the day, there is AIOZ TV, a live-streaming app that converts real-life occurrences into a business by broadcasting user moments in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Final Thoughts
Many more of these networks are emerging to help liberate the content space and make it more egalitarian for everyone. With its inherent features of transparency and decentralization, Blockchain technology is making significant contributions to the dismantling of the monopolies of large-scale social media platforms to a significant degree.
Since they do not have to interact through expensive third-party routes, the system is profitable for advertising and content publishers.
Whereas many such platforms are still in their early phases and have not yet attracted as many users as popular platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, this may not be the case for much longer. Users of content will ultimately gravitate toward the most prolific content source, which is held collectively in the control of only one set of individuals: content creators.
