Covid-19 boosts the creator economy

Covid-19 has led to a boom in the so-called “creator economy”, which is now worth 100 billion dollars. This is the result of research by Collective Intelligence Labs.

The creator economy: NFTs and social tokens

The analysis focuses on the reasons for this boom, which are closely linked to the decentralized economy and the evolution of the web towards 3.0. In this scenario, Covid-19 has led many artists to try to monetize directly from home, from where they have made their creations, whether NFTs or YouTube videos.

On the subject of NFTs, the analysis certifies a real explosion in the sector, which is now worth $1 billion. However, creators are not only monetizing with NFTs, but also with special tokens called social tokens. 

The research divides them into:

• personal tokens, as in the case of the RAC token, the token issued by the Grammy Award-winning artist of the same name;
• community tokens, such as the PSG fan token, the currency with which Paris Saint Germain supporters can interact with their team;
• social platform tokens, such as Chiliz, the Socios platform coin. 

DAOs and DeFi

Covid has also led to the proliferation of decentralized organizations. There are 164 of them on the market. Of these, the most impressive is Uniswap with a value of $4.4 billion.

However, in the economy of content creators, which is completely decentralized, DeFi also deserves a mention. The research notes that at the beginning of 2020, the DeFi sector was worth just $1.5 billion, by October 2021 it had risen to $148 billion. 

Several reasons have created this success, including anonymity, fast and easy transactions, independence from centralized entities and an unregulated landscape. According to the analysis, DeFi could be the key to rebuilding a financial system hard hit by Covid. 

The challenges of the new economy

Content creators face new challenges. Covid-19 has made many of them more creative and confident of new opportunities and prompted them to seek new solutions in a decentralized, blockchain-based economy. 

Among the advantages are the certification of the real authenticity of the works and the possibility to sell them on decentralized platforms. In the near future, these artists will be operating in a metaverse. And since the universe, the real one, is still struggling with the pandemic, it is highly likely that the creators will continue in the wake that has seen them grow. 

The analysis concludes by arguing that:

“When put together, Web 3.0 technologies like blockchain, decentralization, artificial intelligence, and edge computing could have an even greater impact on the creator economy over the next 10 years”.

Alex Shkor, DEIP CEO/Co-Founder of CIL Protocol Architect, commented:.

“Тhe whole purpose of Web 3.0 is to enable a decentralised creator economy аnd all the tech for this already exists. We just need to foster adoption of these technologies in real industries, in creative industries, for the assets produced by creators. It will not only increase liquidity of the creator economy assets, it will also open a flow of capital to creators”.