In Brief:
- Patreon plans on exploring crypto space to open a new stream of revenue for the creators on their platform.
- Patreon also introduced the concept of creator coins for creators in advance of a quarterly Creator Policy Engagement Program livestream.
- Creator coin is a crypto-based social currency that allows fans to invest in the success of their favorite creator.
Yesterday, at The information’s 2021 Creator Economy Summit, Patreon CEO and co-founder Jack Conte and Chief Product Officer Julian Gutman confirmed that the company is entering the crypto space.
“There’s clearly enormous innovation happening in the crypto and NFT space,” Gutman stated. “Obviously there’s the art market and precious goods market that we’re seeing, with crazy pricing, evolve. It’s unclear if that is sustainable across the entire creator economy, but there’s some fundamental technological components to NFTs as a way to sell value to your audience and sort of continue to gain value from that from secondary sales as what you do becomes more and more important to the world.”
Recently, Patreon introduced the concept of creator coins for creators in advance of a quarterly Creator Policy Engagement Program livestream. These creator coins were aimed to allow creators to weigh in on platform policy changes. But this hasn’t turned in the favor for the company as Mastercard’s new standards for adult content prevented the company from interacting with creators about the topic.
A creator coin is a crypto-based social currency that allows fans to invest in the success of their favorite creator. So, if the artists’ supporter purchases a creator’s token early on and the artist goes on to become a superstar, the supporter benefits as well.
“We’re right now not talking about creating any type of initial coin offering, which is specifically not allowed under Patreon’s current guidelines,” Laurent Crenshaw, Patreon’s head of Policy, had said on the Patreon Connect Livestream. “But we’ve heard from a number of creators who have been interested in the opportunity to offer exclusive memberships and benefits to their patrons through a coin or token, a digital item that they can hold onto that shows that they are part of your fan club. And so we thought that at the very least, we could explore the opportunity of making that type of offering allowable under our guidelines.”
Patreon is a membership platform for the creators and their supporters. It allows fans to become active participants in the work they love in a monthly membership. In this monthly membership, creators can share their personal investment stories and give suggestions but the platform’s current guidelines don’t allow coins to be used for directly benefiting a creator or a patron, coins offered as an investment scheme, or incentives to obtain any cryptocurrency. However, if creators indicate a desire in offering creator currencies, Patreon may amend its regulations.
Some crypto initiatives are focused on providing more ownership to creators over their work – for example, an artist will continue to earn a royalty on an NFT every time it’s put up for resale but that’s not true for all artists, especially those who are more conventional fine artists.
Nevertheless, many creators didn’t support the idea of creators indulging in crypto space mostly due to environmental costs.
Many businesses and platforms are getting into the crypto space. Cbeo, a global market infrastructure company, has recently acquired ErisX in order to re-enter the crypto market. With so many tech giants interested in crypto, Patreon’s decision to explore the space could work in its favor.
