Creators have incentives for going onchain, but collectors have little to none.

This is the truth of the matter for many creators who find themselves having to solve for this to generate interest in their work, monetize content, and build community.

The root cause of the issue seems to be incentives that are misaligned between creators and their collectors. Creators are incentivized to mint their content onchain for provenance, monetization, to build a social graph, and much more. Collectors, on the other hand, mint content either to speculate (see: token go up) or because they want to support a creator they like.

If your collectors are in the latter group, you’re off to a great start. However, that is rarely the case.

To solve this issue we must transcend transactional relationships between creators and collectors by creating incentives that reward collectors beyond the point of sale.

Doing so can create a positive flywheel where both parties are drawn closer to one another and an individual's success is intertwined with the whole. This enables us to also build stronger communities that are invested in each other’s success. Or as some would call it, creating win-win relationships.

Memecoins are the loyalty mechanism for web3 brands

I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone reading this when I say meme coins have quickly become the go to mechanism for engaging and rewarding communities. It’s also unsurprising that they are thriving on social platforms like Farcaster. Projects quickly go from launching a meme coin to growing communities through channels.

This can also be true for creator communities.

Many meme coins today start by focusing on a specific group of people who are active in a given space. Take $degen as an example. Jacek, the founder of the project, wanted to engage a small but fast growing community on Farcaster. At that time, the Degen channel had recently launched and had a unique energy compared to most other channels on the platform. The Degen team took a snapshot of those who had joined the channel and were active. Then made $degen claimable to eligible wallets. Soon after they added a points system which enabled additional claims for $degen.

What can we learn from this and how can we do the same for creators and their fans?