TL;DR:

• Driven by the internet and AIGC technology, the creator economy has experienced significant growth, offering creators diverse revenue streams from advertising to direct sales. Publicly accessible AIGC projects like DALL-E 3, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion excel in AI art applications, enhancing efficiency and creative freedom in content creation for the creator economy.
• Despite challenges such as copyright issues and income instability, the integration of Web3 provides new solutions, especially in strengthening copyright management and monetizing works.
• As an emerging platform combining Web3 and AIGC, NFPrompt provides creators with an integrated environment for creation, transactions, and social interaction. Through its initial public offering of $NFP on the Binance LaunchPool, NFPrompt has gained broader exposure and participation opportunities.
• In the future, with the development of AIGC and blockchain technology, the creator economy is expected to become more diverse and inclusive, offering more opportunities and freedom to both creators and consumers.

1. The Evolution of the Creator Economy

1.1 Fueled by the Internet

The creator economy refers to a new economic model that allows creators to earn income by creating digital content with the assistance of internet platforms. Fueled by the wave of the internet, the creator economy has become a crucial component of the global economy. With the advent of AI-generated content (AIGC) and Web3 technology, this field is undergoing unprecedented transformation.

Today, the market size of the creator economy has reached unprecedented heights. According to research by Goldman Sachs, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the global 50 million creators is estimated to be between 10% and 20% over the next five years. By 2027, the global total is expected to exceed $500 billion. The breakthroughs brought about by AIGC have opened new horizons for content creation. This growth is facilitated by the advancement of digitization and globalization, enabling creators to reach wider audiences and earn income through various means, including advertising, sponsorships, merchandise sales, subscription services, and more.

The roots of the creator economy can be traced back to the early days of the internet with the rise of blogs and social media websites. During that time, content creators began utilizing these emerging platforms to share their thoughts, works, and life experiences. Over time, the creator economy has undergone significant development. Early blogs and social media platforms, such as MySpace and YouTube, provided individuals with a space to express and share, also creating the potential for income. YouTube’s Partner Program was a crucial milestone in the early practice of the creator economy, incentivizing video creators to earn advertising revenue through their videos.

YouTube marks the dawn of a new era in the creator economy on the internet. As we entered the 21st century, the proliferation of social media and the increased use of smartphones led to the emergence of more mobile platforms, such as the popular Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat on mobile devices. These platforms provided creators with diversified means of expression and avenues for earning money. Simultaneously, the advent of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Patreon offered creators diverse income streams, including selling products and services directly to fans, as well as earning profits through sponsorship, membership services, and copyright sales.

1.2 AI Enters the Scene: Rise of AIGC Technology

Entering the 21st century, the rapid advancement of AI technology brought about a series of innovative applications that significantly impacted the creator economy. These applications include intelligent content recognition, capable of assessing the quality of content, and intelligent system recommendations that optimize the production and demand matching of content.

Especially in 2022, with the introduction of various image AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) products such as DALL·E 2, Stable Diffusion, Imagen, and Midjourney, along with the year-end launch of the versatile assistant tool ChatGPT, 2022 officially became the year of AIGC. The emergence of AIGC technology signifies AI’s progression toward more advanced forms, and for the creator economy, AIGC’s efficient and human-level logical and content generation capabilities open up new avenues for the development of this community.

AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) can efficiently produce diverse design content

The core technology of AIGC is primarily based on the Transformer model, an efficient algorithm pre-trained on massive data for understanding and processing language or images. The general process of AIGC begins by deeply analyzing the input prompt (instructions or concepts), a step typically carried out by large models for language or image (such as GPT series, BERT series, and CLIP series). Subsequently, it utilizes the Diffusion Model, employing the principle of reverse calculation on Gaussian blur, to achieve the final generation of high-quality images.

With the rise of AIGC, there has been a constant emergence of various AIGC applications in the current market. However, among them, the standout performers in AI drawing applications are still the early projects: DALL-E 3, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. They excel in generating content with outstanding quality. (There is also a Google-developed product, Imagen, but Google adheres to its historical closed-source style, and outsiders can only glean traces of it from other products launched by Google and various academic papers. This indirectly demonstrates the negative impact of centralized institutional monopolies, but that is another topic.) Returning to the main point, the following image illustrates the different results generated by three products in the market when given the same prompt.

It is evident that MidJourney 5.2 produces the best results, faithfully generating the scene according to the prompt’s description and adding numerous details. DALL-E 3 follows with slightly inferior results, but it still generates content in full accordance with the prompt. Stable Diffusion yields the poorest results, failing to capture the “anime girl” style, possibly due to the characteristics of its open-source project, leading to insufficient scale of training data.

Prompt: Anime girl with orange hair looking at TV looking at her favorite show. The results of the same prompt on different applications vary.

Overall, AIGC technology is currently in the stage of assisting human creators in their work, and a hot topic in the market is how to cleverly design Prompt to achieve more optimized generation results. From another perspective, this is also an indication of the early stage of AIGC technology, with future AIGC products expected to gain more creative freedom. With just the minimum standard of Prompt input, high-quality generated content can be produced based on different scenarios. As AIGC technology continues to evolve, it will be increasingly integrated into the daily workflows of creators, playing a more significant role in the creator economy. This technology not only enhances the efficiency of content creation but also provides creators with unprecedented freedom and innovative forms of expression.

1.3 Challenges and Opportunities in the Creator Economy

Admittedly, the inclusion of AIGC brings enormous opportunities to the creator economy, but it cannot be denied that the creator economy still faces various challenges, whether new or old. These challenges include income dependence on centralized platforms, copyright issues arising from generated content, difficulties in sustaining long-term impact of created content, and potential risks associated with the interpretability of AI.

Firstly, for many creators, especially individuals or small studios, their income heavily relies on centralized platforms to publish and promote their works. Since many creators rely on project-based work or unstable ad revenue, their income is susceptible to changes in platform policies. For example, video bloggers and influencers relying on advertising revenue and sponsorship on traditional online channels like YouTube or TikTok often see their income closely tied to viewership. However, due to changes in centralized platform policies or algorithm adjustments, their videos may suddenly lose exposure, leading to a significant drop in income. This dependence further limits the creators’ creative freedom and their ability to monetize their content.

YouTube’s AdSense system supports creators in proportionally sharing revenue from advertisements.

Secondly, in the digital age, the ease of content duplication and dissemination poses significant challenges for copyright protection. Particularly in the absence of clear copyright statements, creators’ works are susceptible to unauthorized use or infringement by others.

For example, the works of photographers, illustrators, and music producers may be used for commercial purposes without their permission, and they often lack sufficient resources to enforce their copyright interests. This issue is particularly pronounced in the AIGC field because determining the originality and ownership of content created by artificial intelligence is a complex and costly task. Additionally, regulations in this emerging field are not yet mature, leading to market uncertainties and risks. However, these challenges have also given rise to new business models and innovative opportunities, such as using blockchain technology to track and manage copyrights.

The Fuse Remix Video, which gained immense popularity on TikTok, fully unleashes the unlimited creativity of the masses while simultaneously becoming a “nightmare for copyright lawyers.”

Furthermore, in the current creator economy, maintaining long-term influence as a content creator requires essential support from a large number of fans. However, establishing and sustaining a loyal and active fan base is a long and challenging process. Fan support is often influenced by content quality, market trends, and the creator’s personal brand. Additionally, fan preferences and interests may change over time, introducing uncertainty for creators.

1. Seeking Opportunities in Web3

At the core of Web3 are blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. As these technologies have achieved significant success in the financial sector, they have sparked increased interest among developers. They have begun exploring the application of Web3’s core technologies to other fields, providing unique perspectives to address long-standing issues in those areas. The creator economy has actively responded to this trend, especially with the influence of AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) technology.

Driven by AIGC technology, the integration of Web3 with the creator economy brings new dimensions of thinking to this field. The most direct transformation is that creators can now more conveniently control the copyright of their works and engage in monetization operations through smart contracts and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). NFTs play a crucial role in ensuring transparency and simplification in the copyright, ownership, and transfer processes of digital artworks, which is particularly important for AIGC-generated content. These technological applications not only provide creators with new revenue channels but also reduce their reliance on traditional intermediary platforms.

2.1 Building an Integrated Web3 Platform for Creators

Dedicated to driving the creator economy and facilitating the integration of Web3 and AIGC, the NFPrompt project (hereinafter referred to as the NFP project) follows a community-led development approach. It establishes an integrated Web3 platform that combines creation, transaction, and social elements for both amateur and professional creators.

Through cutting-edge blockchain and AI technologies, NFP focuses on lowering user barriers and empowering users to create high-quality content quickly and easily within 30 minutes. This content can then be converted into NFTs, establishing digital copyright and ownership. The NFP project proposes transforming the core of contemporary large-model environment creation—Prompts—into NFTs, creating a unique creative process, social environment, and revenue space. As of the time of writing, the NFPrompt project has attracted over 180,000 registered creators and generated over a million NFTs, rightfully establishing itself as a leading project in the Web3 x AIGC track.

NFPrompt project has attracted a significant number of users and traffic.

Simple and intuitive creative interface UI design

• Platform core functions:

NFPrompt prioritizes an extremely user-friendly and innovative experience. Users can register with a regular email or a Web3 wallet, input a prompt (instruction or creative concept), and the platform’s system quickly generates corresponding content using the latest AI models, including DALLE 3, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney V5. The generated content spans various forms such as text, images, and audio, allowing flexible presentation based on user preferences—whether as standalone artworks, commercial ad content, or personalized social media posts. This feature significantly simplifies the creative process, lowering barriers of entry and providing unprecedented convenience and efficiency, especially for creators lacking specific skills or resources.

Four Interactions between Users and NFP Products: Registration, Creation, Casting, and Trading.

NFP is not just a content generation tool; it provides users with a pathway to convert creative content into economic value. Users can cast their generated content into NFTs and trade them on the platform’s integrated marketplace. This empowers creators to produce unique and valuable works, ensuring their digital copyrights are protected through blockchain technology, and allowing them to directly reap economic rewards from their creative efforts. Additionally, thanks to the efficient opBNB technology architecture used by NFP, the platform provides a highly cost-effective creative environment, with creation costs for each NFT as low as a few cents—making it an attractive advantage for cost-sensitive small teams or individual creators.

Thanks to opBNB, transaction gas fees for users have decreased from $0.3 to $0.01.

• Creator Community and Interaction

NFP has established a vibrant community that encourages communication and collaboration among NFT content creators and between creators and their audiences. Users can freely share their creations, receive valuable feedback, and have the opportunity to collaborate with other creators to produce new works, enhancing the impact of their creative content.

The community hosts regular themed activities and creative competitions, sparking creative inspiration and providing users with a platform to showcase their talents and gain recognition. The introduction of a “Credit System” and corresponding voting mechanisms allows users to earn points and tokens, using these rewards to purchase other creators’ works or enhance the visibility of their own creations. These features make NFP a comprehensive creator economy ecosystem, supporting artistic pursuits while offering new income opportunities.

The project team will regularly hold various content creative activities

2.2 $NFP is listed on Binance through LaunchPool, and the latest Tokenomic is released at the same time

On December 19, 2023, the official announcement was made that the $NFP project would conduct its initial token offering through participation in Binance LaunchPool. According to the latest Tokenomic release, $NFP tokens will have a total minting supply of 1 billion, with 11% of the tokens distributed through the initial Binance LaunchPool offering.

Considering the average project market value on Binance LaunchPool at $220 million and the previous project Fusionist (ACE) reaching $350 million, a rough valuation for the $NFP project can be estimated. The expected opening price is between $1.3 to $1.7, with an annualized return of 60% to 160%, and a 7-day risk-free return of 1% to 3.42%. The estimated cost price for obtaining a single NFP by borrowing BNB is approximately between $0.4 to $0.6.

The average historical project market value on Binance LaunchPool is approximately $220 million (Source: ChainBroker)

Based on this valuation, the expected return rate is 20% to 40% higher compared to the previous project Fusionist (ACE), which conducted a token offering on the LaunchPool. This difference includes factors such as the relatively lower token allocation for ACE’s LaunchPool distribution and the higher interest rates for borrowing and staking tokens at that time.

Apart from the 11% allocated on Binance LaunchPool, other token distribution components include initial airdrop, team, investors, short-term growth fund, and long-term treasury fund, with the allocation ratio outlined in the table below. It is noteworthy that:

• The token distribution model for this offering follows the Fair Launch model adopted by currently popular Bitcoin-meme projects. This model provides an equal opportunity for ordinary investors and institutional players, reminiscent of the early days of crypto.
• Beyond achieving fairness in the initial launch, subsequent token distributions aim to maintain a consistent principle of fairness. While ensuring fair distribution to all contributors to the token economic model, the system also ensures healthy competition within the ecosystem, stimulating its growth.
• The proportion of chips held by early-stage whales and investors has decreased compared to the initial design, with more tokens gradually distributed to community creators, avoiding a concentration of tokens among passive investors. Additionally, the team is committed to building a long-term project, proactively extending the team token unlocking release period to 1 year release + 5 years linear unlock for both the team and investors.
• The portion allocated to the long-term treasury fund, constituting 27% of the total, allows public oversight and voting for usage. This effectively reduces the circulating supply of tokens, contributing to the long-term value construction of the project.

$NFP Token Allocation

The unlock schedule for $NFP tokens is illustrated in the chart below. The portions allocated to Binance LaunchPool and the initial airdrop are immediately fully unlocked. The allocations for the team and investors will undergo a one-year lockup period and start linear unlocking in Q4 2024, while the rest will start linear unlocking in Q4 2023.

Token release schedule for $NFP tokens

Finally, as the native token of the NFP project, $NFP is endowed with various functionalities, including fee payment, community governance, staking rewards, receiving airdrops, and community impact. These functionalities will be gradually implemented with the project’s updates, targeting a launch in Q4 2023.

2.3 Anticipated New Features

In addition to frequently organizing creative events in collaboration with other projects to promote the project, the team is actively preparing for future updates to further attract users. The main goals of the upcoming roadmap are as follows, with the core idea being to enable users to monetize their imagination and influence through creation.

2023 Q4:

• SocialFi: Establish social games and user-tier mechanisms to enhance the commercial influence of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) through premium series.
• Market or community activities on the opBNB platform.
• Staking mechanism in tokenomics, allowing users to earn rewards or participate in project governance.

2024 Q1:

• Establish the NFP Creator Foundation to drive the commercialization of NFTs. The foundation will purchase popular NFT series voted on by the community.
• Establish partnerships with commercial clients, including collaborations with well-known AI companies and expanding partnerships with renowned retail and cultural brands in Web2.
• Provide more AI models and tools for advanced users to create custom art as a paid service.
• Launch an official NFT series tied to platform privileges.

2024 Q2:

• NFP AI Foundation: Contribute to cutting-edge generative AI research in the research field.
• Expand into emerging countries, providing simpler access and a friendly mobile user experience for mass users.

One noteworthy planned feature for Q4 2023 is SocialFi:

1. Drawing inspiration from the success of Friend.tech in the SocialFi paradigm, the NFP project plans to introduce a new feature that integrates user accounts with the pricing mechanism for their creative content. This mechanism, based on analyzing the popularity and supply of products, prices works according to a predetermined price curve. Additionally, each NFP work will embed a chat channel designed to facilitate direct communication between creators and collectors. This initiative aims to enhance the impact of creative content while providing an effective feedback channel for creators to improve efficiency and quality.

Friend.Tech: The key bound to each account is priced according to the price curve (the more people buy it, the higher the price); after purchase, you can enter an exclusive chat room for direct communication with the account owner

In a future update, the sharing volume of creative content on the NFP community platform will directly impact its trend index and final pricing. A higher share rate means increased visibility and popularity for the work, potentially enhancing its final market price. This mechanism encourages creators to not only produce high-quality content but also actively share to increase exposure and value.

3. A new journey of the creator economy

NFPrompt, as a pioneer application in the implementation of Web3 and AIGC technology, demonstrates how technological innovation empowers creators, opening new revenue channels and providing important insights into the future development of the entire creator economy. The platform’s emergence not only signifies that the creator economy will no longer be confined to traditional creation and transaction environments but also, by successfully launching on Binance LaunchPool, indicates the market’s long-term optimism about the development of AIGC x Web 3 in the creator economy.

Looking ahead, Web3 and AIGC will continue to drive the development of the creator economy. The AI track within the Web3 field is also attracting increasing attention from investors. As these technologies mature and become more widely applied, we can expect to see more innovative use cases. For example, AI technology may further develop the ability to create more complex and personalized content. Additionally, with the widespread adoption of blockchain technology, more creators will be able to benefit directly from their work without relying on third-party platforms.

In summary, the AIGC creator economy in the Web3 era is rapidly evolving, bringing unprecedented opportunities and challenges. With the progress of technology and market adaptation, the future creator economy will be more prosperous and diverse, providing creators with more freedom and opportunities while offering consumers a richer and more colorful digital content experience.

Statement:
This report was created by contributor @GryphsisAcademy @chenyangjamie. The author is solely responsible for all content, which does not necessarily reflect the views of Gryphsis Academy or the organization that commissioned the report. Editorial content and decisions are not influenced by readers. Please note that the author may hold cryptocurrencies mentioned in this report. This document is for informational purposes only and should not be used as the basis for investment decisions. It is strongly recommended to conduct your own research and consult with impartial financial, tax, or legal advisors before making investment decisions. Remember that past performance of any asset does not guarantee future returns.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [Medium]. All copyrights belong to the original author [Gryphsis Academy]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.