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Seed Club Creator X Crypto Summit
Seed Club (@Seedclubhq) is currently hosting a conference called the "Crypto x Creator" summit bringing together some of the most interesting thinkers at the intersection of the Creator Economy and the Crypto world. They hosted three panels today for day 2 of their summit: (1) "Unlocking Value in Creator Economies ", (2) "Music Hits Web3 ", and (3) "Pushing Token Boundaries ".
I jotted down some notes on (2) and (3) as the speakers (all of whom were exceptional) were chatting, and hopefully these notes can spark some exploration around these topics both for myself and others.
Music Hits Web3 Panel
Speakers: Nicole d'Avis (@mybellalogica), Matthew Chaim (@matthewchaim), Jeremy Stern (@jzstern) , and Jack Spallone (@jackspallone)
Matthew Chaim talked about how Web 3.0, specifically NFT and Social Tokens brings more value back to the creators. Jeremy Stern describes NFTs are cultural LEGOs, and mentioned artists like 3LAU selling NFTs around publishing rights, which can potentially decentralize roles in music publishing. Nicole d'Avis noted that in 2016-7, a lot of the conversations around music in blockchain were more about getting rights, credits, and profit splits put on-chain, whereas now Music x Web 3.0 is more about distribution and pushing the boundaries of what is on-chain.
The conversation ended by mentioning that NFTs and Social Tokens for Musicians have been discussed widely, but the next step is discussing the intersection of DAOs and music. Jeremy Stern mentioned that a DAO that takes the shape of a record label could provide more equitable results for artists. Matthew Chaim sees a potential future in which superfans could be able to leave their jobs and work for their favorite artists. Jack Spallone mentions artists might flock to new forms of curation and music discovery mechanisms and ideally that the music landscape looks less extractive and more value-add after that.
Pushing Token Boundaries
Speakers: RAC (@RAC), Trevor McFedries (@whatdotcd), Cooper Turley (@Coopahtroopa)
RAC mentioning that he started an agency to help people get into the NFT world. Both RAC (RAC) and Trevor (FWB) started social tokens. RAC points out that as he built out the Twitch and Discord groups, that RAC fans began not just connecting with him, but connecting with each other, which builds a superior community. He goes on to mention Web 3 is still developing from a user interface perspective.Trevor mentioned that seeing thriving producers with mansions in LA while many of his own producer friends were struggling inspired him to look at ways to create value for artists. Coopahtroopa mentions that the value of social tokens is not just the appreciation of the token price, but the strength and vitality of the community surrounding it.
RAC mentions that one power in the social token world is that if his community decides on a certain feature or improvement, that it could be something that is applied across many social tokens, and potentially become a best practice of sorts. He also mentions that for platform users (ie Facebook, Twitter, etc) you are creating value for the platform and the value is going to the platform owner. In contrast, he mentions that social tokens allow for that value to be captured by the community and those creating the value in that community.
Trevor mentions that since NFT > DeFi (as far as media attention and in the popular consciousness), the cultural component of tokens is important especially to the younger generation. He posits that the financialization of the economy might play a role, and also that "infographic activism" can be applied to building better governance, firstly in the virtual space through DAOs, and then ideally those lessons can be applied in the real world. So he certainly sees DAOs as having a potentially transformative effect, not just limited to the digital world. He mentions that to accomplish all this, we need to figure out governance at scale. Trevor also used his social token community, FWB, to mentor other artists such as Jacques Greene.
Coopahtroopa mentions that community tokens + cash flow would make a powerful combination. Tokenizing rights and catalogs is an interesting area and space. RAC mentions that as people get on-ramped into the Web 3.0 space, they start by making a Metamask wallet, maybe minting NFTs, then many steps later they could be buying land in Decentraland and curating other people's NFT art. All these elements are interconnected. You could theoretically then look a person up and see what communities they are in on-chain. Trevor wonders if there is a way to measure the value that you are generating on-chain through a clout score, though he mentions that is mildly "Black Mirror"-esque in many ways. Both Trevor and RAC mention that creator communities and on-chain consumption has a large component around "signaling", and that real-life signaling is moving to the digital world too. "Your public wallet becomes your source of truth" - RAC.
Trevor is curious about multisigs and their potential for creating collective identity, which seem like the equivalent of Zines where dissident and interesting thinkers all contribute to one Zine in the real world. RAC builds on that, saying having an FWB approved piece of art would be an interesting example of community sign-off. All three mention "degen scores" (something I will need to look up after). RAC mentions that artists need to be judicious about what they do with their Public and Private accounts, like for instance buying shitcoins on your public account may send the wrong signal. Public accounts become part in some sense of a "new social graph".
