GuShiio.com Creator tokenization is not only a conceptual innovation, but also a trend in the development of the digital economy.
Original title: Liquid Markets for Creators Coins – $100B Market Opportunity
Written by: hitesh.eth, founder of dyorcryptoapp
Compiled by: Ashley, BlockBeats
Editor’s note: This article explores how creator tokenization allows fans, investors and brands to directly participate in creator growth, promoting market-oriented transactions and value discovery. As the creator’s economic market exceeds US$500 billion, the tokenization model can help brands lock in early cooperation opportunities and use DAO governance to allow fans to create business decisions together. The financialization of the creator economy is becoming an inevitable trend in the Web3 era, which may reshape the way social media interacts with financial markets.
The following is the original content (the original content has been compiled for ease of reading and understanding):
Creators are essentially like a startup, but one key difference is this: In start-ups, investors can invest and bet on growth at different stages, while in the creator space, fans or investors used to not be able to directly participate in their growth. Whether it is a start-up or a creator, the core of growth lies in whether consumers are willing to pay for their products or services. A startup’s product or service usually revolves around a problem to be solved, while a creator’s product is their content itself. As products, these content is suitable for different interest-driven market segments and meets the needs of various audiences.
The speculative nature of start-ups and creators
Start-ups are in a highly speculative environment, with investors betting on early-stage companies hoping they will expand quickly and achieve profitability. The valuation of start-ups often depends on market appeal, user growth and revenue potential. This speculative logic also applies to creators, but there is currently no formal investment structure that allows fans or traders to participate in the creator’s growth. The lack of liquidity in the creator economy means an untapped market opportunity-if creators can be tokenized, speculators can trade their growth potential like bets on start-ups.
Speculation on creators can become a major opportunity for traders and investors. Just as start-ups go through hype cycles, and their valuations change with market acceptance, creators go through a similar cycle-with influence growing due to viral spread, strategic collaborations, and media exposure. The creator’s reputation, interaction rate and ability to convert traffic into revenue are all quantifiable indicators that can serve as a speculative basis for its tokenized value.
The creator’s 0-1 and 1-10 journey
The growth path of creators is similar to that of start-ups, both going through 0-1 and 1-10 stages.
- 0-1 Stage: It means breaking down barriers, entering market segments, establishing an initial audience, and continuously optimizing content strategies. Many creators stop there, just as many startups fail before finding a product market fit.
- 1-10 Stage: It means large-scale expansion. At this stage, creators began to establish brand cooperation, obtain commercial sponsorship, and realize traffic monetization. At this stage, the creator is not just a content producer, but gradually grows into a complete commercial entity. This transformation is similar to the process for startups to grow from small teams to mature companies.
Today, many consumer start-ups and creators are part of the same ecosystem with similar goals: to sell two products to users-the content itself and the branding that is integrated into the content.
The size and future potential of the creator economy
The creator economy has grown into a hundreds of billions of dollars industry, and the market size is expected to exceed US$500 billion in the next decade. Currently, millions of creators produce content every day, and brands are investing huge amounts of money in Internet celebrity marketing. In 2023 alone, global Internet celebrity marketing spending will exceed US$20 billion, and this number continues to grow as brand budgets shift towards digital native advertising.
The tokenization of the creator economy is expected to spawn a whole new asset class. Over the next three years, the creator token market could easily be valued at US$100 billion as more creators adopt token-based monetization models. Establishing a fully liquid creator token trading market will provide investors with a new speculative arena, allowing them to bet on emerging Internet celebrities and form a price discovery mechanism based on social influence, audience growth, and brand collaboration flows.
Creator tokens and brand cooperation
From a brand perspective, it is crucial to lock in creators as early as possible. Brands often want to establish partnerships at discounted prices before creators become popular. After creator tokenization, brands can benefit as their influence grows by purchasing and holding their tokens. This not only provides brands with priority cooperation rights, but also ensures that they enjoy more valuable advertising resources after the creators succeed.
If the value of creator tokens increases with influence, brands can also benefit from discounted sponsorship fees and capital appreciation while holding these tokens. This model makes brands more willing to invest in potential creators over the long term rather than just paying one-time advertising fees.
Fans are brand managers: Collaboration between creators of DAO governance
With the introduction of the DAO governance model, fans can also deeply participate in the creator’s business decisions and completely change the way brands cooperate.
- Fan voting decision: The creator’s brand cooperation will be decided by a joint vote of DAO members (i.e. token holders), rather than a unilateral choice by the creator. This ensures that brand partnerships are consistent with the creator’s audience needs and values.
- Revenue sharing: Revenue generated by brand cooperation can be distributed to governance token holders through a pledge reward mechanism, making them direct stakeholders in the creator’s growth.
As long as creators remain popular, their influence and traffic will grow, further boosting token trading volume and investor interest, thereby increasing the value of creator tokens. The DAO will act as a decentralized brand manager, ensuring transparency, fairness and providing a sustainable profit model for creators and their communities.
The future of creator tokenization
Creator tokenization is not only a conceptual innovation, but also an inevitable trend in the development of the digital economy. The rise of Web3, DeFi and tokenized assets has created the perfect environment for the creator token market to flourish. The speculative market built around the creator economy could fundamentally change the power structure of social media, bringing creators, brands, and fans together to participate in a new financial system.
