At 0xCreator Labs, we set out to build a paid content platform predicated on the founding principles and ideals of Web3. At the core of the platform is the ability to depict and capture the essence of copyrights and content access as valuable assets. Our vision is to exploit the potential of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and hereby help creators publish and distribute their work without reliance on centralized content curation. We empower creators to realize their potential and become sovereign creators who control their own destinies. We also envisage future on-chain economic systems that will offer more ways to syndicate paid content, thereby (i) improving the effectiveness of content curation and (ii) providing creators with the means to live by and for creating.
We contend that centralized curation (e.g., editorial curation and algorithmic feeds) are ill-fitted for discovering niche content. Instead, decentralized content curation is more optimal for the effectiveness of monetization, which already exists on Web2 platforms in the forms of social curation and content recommendations by key opinion leaders (KOLs). However, these mechanisms fail to reward the curators who contributed much of the value to the ecosystem.
We believe we can tackle these challenges by applying the principles of Web3 to the creator economy. Purchasing paid content is effectively a method of acquiring access to the content, resembling an e-commerce transaction where the content is the actual product sold. At the same time, NFTs are tools for capturing the characteristics of paid content as virtual goods. We use a set of NFTs to represent content access, which we call the Reading-NFT (“r-NFT”).
Similarly, for each piece of content produced, we create a dedicated NFT to represent its copyright, which we call the Copyright-NFT (“c-NFT”). As the initial owner of a c-NFT, the creator can mint various copies of r-NFTs associated with the unique c-NFT. Distribution channels (i.e., individual KOLs) can curate the r-NFTs and take a cut of the sales proceeds if/when the curation leads to transactions. We believe this mechanism incentivizes KOLs to curate high-quality, relevant content for their audience. Content consumers can access the NFT-gated content after purchasing the corresponding r-NFT.
This technical framework is predicated on the first principle of depicting copyright and access as valuable assets, which extends to the relative scarcity and liquidity of paid content. We believe many highly engaged and motivated KOLs/curators will work with us and improve content discoverability. For creators, more decentralized distribution channels drive better monetization.
We are also exploring new economic systems (including tokenomics) to enable the automatic pricing of content, making profit-sharing between KOLs and creators a simpler and more manageable process. Our product can directly apply many examples and use cases of algorithmic/automatic pricing in the DeFi and NFT marketplace segments. By reducing the friction costs, we help creators to remain focused on the most challenging part of their jobs (i.e., creating) while leaving the complexities of content distribution to the market.
With the product’s launch and continued refinement, a community centered on creators and readers will play an increasingly important role in realizing our vision. The community will be increasingly involved in many aspects of our decision-making processes, including business operations, governance, and product development.
If our platform can accumulate a sufficiently large pool of content over the longer term, we wish to expand our vision to the protocol and infrastructure layer. We would open up the technical framework and standard of c/r-NFTs, the smart contract APIs, and our content pool to third-party developers. Emerging developers and their decentralized apps (dApps) can use our protocol and infrastructure to mitigate the cold-start problem. Meanwhile, more dApps will serve as the testing grounds for innovative economic systems and new ways of distributing content.
While busy with product development, we will share more of our thinking behind the vision. You can follow us through the following channels. We welcome fellow community builders to come on the journey with us to make the vision a reality and do the best work of our lives.
Mirror: mirror.xyz/0xcreatorlabs.eth
Medium: medium.com/@0xCreator-Labs
Twitter: twitter.com/0xCreatorLabs
Email: info@0xcreator.io
With love ❤️
0xCreator Labs