A lot of ink spilled recently about content coins.
Here’s what I believe:
People trying new things / models / ideas are good! Even if a given thing / model / idea has the potential to be abused, if there’s potential for it to be used constructively, it’s worth trying.
No one is forcing you to buy anything. You can literally log off and be protected from the potential bad outcomes.
Just because norms exist at a point in time doesn’t mean the norms can’t be changed. Changing norms can be good!
If you’re getting religious over what is essentially a file format—ERC20, ERC721, ERC1155—you’re in too deep. Most people won’t care what format it is. What they will care about is what “job to be done” and how they feel interacting with it.
If everyone treats content coins as “number go up machines and bail before attention tries up Keynesian Beauty Contest” then yes, most people will have a bad time. However, if through quantity / frequency / norm shifting that changes…
I genuinely believe that iteration / UX can make the average content coin look like a “tip” or a “collect” from a creator—while still having the ability to allow for the small number of viral coins to accrue value to the creator through trading fees.
What does that mean for NFTs? I don’t know. I think different approaches to content are good. What’s the difference between a 3-part 3 hour movie trilogy and a 9 episode prestige television series in 2025?
The fundamental issue with all onchain content / creators is the small number of people with 1) a funded crypto wallet 2) actively using it. The way for any of these models to be proven successful is growing the number of users with funded wallets who are actively transacting.
There’s a lot to like about Ethereum culture. The worst part, however, is the invented purity tests.
If you don’t like something, don’t use it. Even better: build an alternative!
It’s a permissionless, decentralized and open source-friendly ecosystem. You can simply fork things.
The actual hard part is attracting and retaining users. Since this is extremely difficult and most people / projects / companies can’t do it, the apps/platforms/chains with established usage attract the most armchair criticism.
And when there isn’t a massive influx of new people, finger-pointing and scapegoating intensify.
The solution is more people with funded wallets regularly transacting onchain who actually use the apps developers are building.
First published on April 21, 2025
