The future of blockchain innovation in social media: Opinion

Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the editorial views and opinions of crypto.news.

The direct-to-consumer era is here in every aspect of the game, and the $250 billion creative economy is not immune to this change.

For too long, traditional social media platforms have acted as gatekeepers to revenue streams, limiting the ways content creators, their followers, and modest advertisers can interact with each other.

Having seen many web2-based iterations fail to balance these three pillars, it seems that the future is rightfully leaning towards web3 to democratize social media.

Empowering creators, users and advertisers

According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, blockchain’s impact on the media, advertising, and entertainment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 78.49% to $27.29 billion by 2029. This transformation that we are witnessing live has been made possible by the emergence of defi integrations that are eliminating the middleman and laying the foundation for a new era of creativity, interaction, and trust.

From providing solutions to age-old problems like digital piracy, skewed copyright distribution, and monopoly of user data, blockchain technology is now finding widespread use in redefining human interactions. This starts with empowering creators, without whom such platforms become just another community chat hub.

By thinking beyond brand interactions, SocialFi platforms are helping to create a model where loyal, paying communities sustain their creative livelihoods. While current solutions focus solely on the creator, the other two legs of the system—users and advertisers—can no longer be ignored.

This is where a tokenized ecosystem comes in. By enabling creators to earn directly through audience engagement and rewarding each user for their digital footprint, the next phase of SocialFi should create processes that are mutually rewarding for everyone involved. This approach not only democratizes earnings to ensure creators are compensated fairly, but also increases user engagement by aligning the interests of creators and their audiences.

Additionally, advertisers who are part of this ecosystem have greater control over their spend, can better engage with the entire spectrum of users, and thus get a better return on their investment.

NFTs for digital ownership

A few years ago, NFTs emerged with great fanfare but quickly faded as the hype overshadowed their real-world applications in tokenizing digital assets. However, the sector continues to see healthy funding as investors bet on its applications in sectors like art, real estate, photography, music, and social content — essentially, a tie-in to RWA.

We’re increasingly seeing that decentralizing content isn’t enough. There needs to be a way to stamp your intellectual property on it and monetize it forever. In this context, NFTs allow creators to have true ownership with the added benefit of merch and recurring revenue.

Another thing to consider is that short-form visual content has emerged as the most popular form of content on the internet today. Despite their popularity, copyright infringement and lack of creator credits have overlooked the efforts of digital contributors. By offering real scope for instant conversion of visual content into NFTs, SocialFi platforms can add a previously untouched layer of transparency and monetization.

Despite such inherent potential, integrating blockchain into the media sector is not without its challenges. Issues such as scalability and interoperability are not new, and much has to do with emerging low-code solutions that enable developers to build scalable L2s more effectively and at lower costs.

Some networks, such as Sui, provide a robust on-chain development environment and equip platforms with high throughput, an important factor in media applications that demand high transaction speeds for optimal user experience.

Building on-chain also enables decentralized and mainstream fintech tools to connect into a common ecosystem, not to mention protecting intellectual property and preventing cyberattacks by managing such platforms on-chain. All of these factors are particularly useful for seamless real-time payments, including micropayments, which traditional fiat-based transfers cannot serve due to high transaction costs.

The complexity of web3 interfaces may be the biggest hurdle for now, but with newer platforms combining the familiarity of web2 with the flexibility of Defi, the opportunity to bridge two different worlds has never been more accessible.

Anoir Houmou

Anoir Houmou is the Founder and CEO of RECRD, a pioneering video engagement platform backed by Sui Foundation that uses blockchain technology to transform content creation and monetization. With over 14 years of experience in marketing and advertising, Anoir has blended technology and creativity to drive RECRD to over 500,000 users pre-launch. Anoir has raised over $4 million from major VCs and investors, including the co-founder of Netflix and major entertainment and sports personalities. Anoir’s vision for RECRD focuses on empowering content creators, encouraging interactive engagement, and enabling secure transactions through AI and blockchain technology. With major launches in India and Africa, as well as an upcoming token launch, Anoir is poised to lead RECRD through transformative growth and global recognition.