By Lucas Williams
If you enjoy unique content from different creators, you may be aware of Patreon, a popular membership platform. It turns out that it’s now considering active creators to issue their very own coins. The statement was given by the CEO and co-founder of Patreon, Jack Conte, as well as the company’s chief product officer, Julian Gutman. They made the announcement at The Information’s 2021 Creator Economy Summit.
This move is very consistent with the platform’s stance regarding cryptocurrency. Last year in September, they published a report that evaluated the idea. It looked into the potential of using cryptocurrency and related technology as a part of the Patreon platform.
The company is looking into the idea of integrating crypto technology to enhance their revenue paths. It also includes the prospect of offering a membership token to the platform’s different creators. Although Patreon has openly prohibited the use of coins as a means of investment on the platform, this may change. That’s because of the increase in crypto adoption, along with the rapidly growing NFT market, could lead to a change of heart.
With regard to this, the chief product officer stated that the firm is very much intrigued in assessing the use of blockchain technology. They’re looking into how some of this technology can help in allowing earnings for creators in the long-term. Of course, they want to ensure that it’s sustainable as well.
The CEO went as far as to praise how crypto works, because of the framework’s direct ad permissionless features. This benefit will allow content creators to own what they create. It also serves as a way for them to store data from followers without needing a separate platform serving as a middleman. But what’s so odd about this benefit is that Patreon is the company serving as a middleman. Nevertheless, the CEO explained that this concept of the technology seems exciting, and will help Patreon venture into new areas.
On the other hand, let’s not forget that the platform has considered using crypto as an alternative itself. Patreon has faced numerous problems with the platform’s creators in the past. These incidents have pushed them to consider using crypto-based services as a new option. Towards the end of 2018, Patreon de-platformed some of its creators, including Carl Benjamin, who is also known as Sargon of Akkad. This left the creator without payment from his subscribers that month.
Another influencer using Patreon’s service, Jordan Peterson, closed his account as a result of this. Instead, he launched a different, alternative service that would have relaxed rules with in terms of content production. But even so including crypto as a part of a membership service has been implemented before, with limited success.