A New Era of Creator Economy Driven by Web3 Technology: Empowering Creators and Reshaping the Digital Content Ecosystem

A New Era of Creator Economy Driven by Web3 Technology: Empowering Creators and Reshaping the Digital Content EcosystemAs the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation deepens, the digital economy has become a crucial engine for global economic growth. The creator economy, a key force driving cultural innovation and social progress, has long faced challenges such as platform monopolies, unfair revenue distribution, and difficulties in copyright protection

A New Era of Creator Economy Driven by Web3 Technology: Empowering Creators and Reshaping the Digital Content Ecosystem

As the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation deepens, the digital economy has become a crucial engine for global economic growth. The creator economy, a key force driving cultural innovation and social progress, has long faced challenges such as platform monopolies, unfair revenue distribution, and difficulties in copyright protection. The numerous difficulties under the traditional internet model severely restrict the development space for creators. However, the emergence of Web3 has brought unprecedented opportunities to the creator economy and is reshaping the digital content ecosystem.

Web3 is not merely a simple iteration of internet technology, but a revolution in the control of user data and rights. It returns the digital identity and data rights originally controlled by internet platforms to users and creators, building a value-centric network ecosystem. Currently, we are at a critical juncture in the transition from Web2 to Web3, and how to seize this opportunity has become a focal point of industry attention. At the "Web3 Technology-Driven Creator Economy Blue Ocean Forum" held on November 30th, jointly organized by the Shanghai Shentu Blockchain Research Institute, the Shanghai Distributed Consensus Technology Association, and Dragonfly Capital (Shanghai) Equity Investment Management Co., Ltd., experts delved into this issue. Mr. Long Fan, founder of Conflux, director of the Shanghai Shentu Blockchain Research Institute, and president of the Shanghai Distributed Consensus Technology Association, pointed out: "Web3 is not only an innovation in internet technology, but also a revolution in the control of user data and rights. It returns the digital identity and data rights originally managed by internet platforms to users and creators themselves, promoting the formation of a value-centric network ecosystem. Currently, we are at a critical historical stage in the transition from Web2 to Web3, and how to seize this opportunity is the significance of this forum." Mr. Liao Yunfa, director of the East China Branch of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, also stated that the rise of Web3 technology is bringing unprecedented opportunities to the creator economy.

As the future direction of the next-generation internet, Web3's decentralized nature and its core characteristic of user data ownership provide creators with a fairer, more open, and transparent creative environment. This is not only a technological iteration but also a new vision of the transformation from information interconnection to value interconnection. The empowerment of the creator economy by Web3 technology is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:

1. Web3 Technology Innovates Creative Methods: Web3 technology breaks the monopoly of traditional platforms, allowing more excellent works to be discovered and disseminated, thereby stimulating the creative enthusiasm of more people. The rise of AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) technology provides creators with powerful assistants and creativity expanders, significantly improving creation efficiency and content richness, and giving rise to more novel and unique work forms. Creators can use AI technology to quickly generate high-quality content and focus on creativity and artistic expression, improving overall creation efficiency.

2. Web3 Technology Fosters New Business Models: RWA (Real-World Asset) establishes a value mapping between the real world and the digital world, which is a vivid practice of finance returning to its origins. Under the Web3 architecture, brand digital assets are endowed with new value dimensions and management models. Creators can cooperate with brands to deeply explore the potential of brand digital assets, achieving synergy between brand value and creator influence, thereby expanding revenue growth paths and commercial imagination. This new business model provides creators with broader monetization channels and business cooperation opportunities.

3. Web3 Technology Shapes a New Business Ecosystem: From the decentralized channel expansion of work release to the digital reshaping of the creation process, and to the innovative revenue distribution model based on smart contracts, Web3 technology has prompted creators to make a comprehensive transformation from creative concepts to practical operations. It builds a new creative ecosystem closed-loop centered on creators, empowered by multiple technologies, and deeply involved in the community, opening a new journey of sustainable and highly active development of the creator economy. Through decentralized platforms and smart contracts, creators can interact more directly with audiences, better control the copyright and revenue distribution of their works, and thus establish a more positive and healthy creative ecosystem.

However, the combination of Web3 and the creator economy is still in its infancy and faces many challenges. Issues such as technical complexity, low user awareness, and imperfect laws and regulations need to be overcome through joint efforts from the industry.

Mr. Sun Xiaohan, managing partner of Hongguan Investment Management, further elaborated on the empowering role of Web3 in the creator economy at the forum. He pointed out that in the Web3.0 era, the creator economy is undergoing a revolution. CreatorFi, as a new economic model based on decentralized technology, places content creators at the center of value creation. This model integrates generative AI, NFTs, and community loyalty, providing creators with unprecedented income and control. Compared with traditional Web2 platforms, the attractiveness of Web3 platforms to creators is obvious. For example, OpenSea paid creators an average income of up to $174,500 in 2021. Web3 simplifies copyright governance and economic transactions through smart contracts, while programmable IP allows creators to programmatically set the use, authorization, and revenue sharing of their works, achieving automated and transparent distribution of rights. This not only increases creators' income but also promotes the liquidity and creative collaboration of IPs globally.

Despite the broad prospects for CreatorFi, challenges remain. How to enable creators to adapt to the new Web3 experience, recognize its value, and feel convenient and secure during use is a problem the industry urgently needs to address. Furthermore, creators need to freely switch between multiple blockchain ecosystems, which requires platforms to enhance discoverability and portability and provide diverse AI tool integrations to enhance creative capabilities.

Mr. Li Chenxing, a young scientist at the Shanghai Shentu Blockchain Research Institute, explored the new era of AI creation from the perspective of the collaborative development of AI and Web3. He believes that the development of artificial intelligence has given rise to new content creation methods and defined new production materials and processes. However, due to the lack of trustworthy platforms, the secondary development of open-source models and vertical field customization by different market entities cannot be interconnected, limiting the composability of artificial intelligence. Web3 technology is expected to solve this problem: by utilizing blockchain technology and privacy computing technology to build a platform with smooth value circulation and controllable data usage, secondary development results in different dimensions of the artificial intelligence field can converge and integrate on a neutral basic platform, thereby promoting the development of the artificial intelligence industry and enabling Web3 technology to reach more people.

Mr. Li Chenxing also looked ahead to the digital foundation of the Web3-supported AI creation era, including personal digital certificates to solve identity issues, decentralized storage to host AI production materials, smart contract platforms to customize specific business logic and build economic models for the production process, and trustworthy computing power markets to handle specific computing task execution and provide hardware support. The Shentu Institute is actively promoting relevant technological research and development, including solving the key bottleneck of personal digital certificates through BSIM cards; developing decentralized storage systems; improving the performance of smart contract platforms through high-performance blockchain and research on interaction standards with blockchain sidechains (Layer-2 networks); and researching the work scheduling and workload measurement technology of trustworthy computing power platforms.

This "Web3 Technology-Driven Creator Economy Blue Ocean Forum" brought together experts, scholars, and frontline practitioners from various fields, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, finance, communications, and art creation, to jointly explore the innovative applications and development paths of Web3 technology in the creator economy, contributing wisdom and strength to promoting the healthy development of Web3 and the creator economy. The views expressed by companies and experts do not represent official positions.