Reports coming out on Patreon CEO Jack Conte’s talk at The Information’s 2021 Creator Economy Summit focus on headlines which note that the company is looking at ways to embrace crypto as a monetization method for creators. Chief Product Officer Julian Gutman noted that… “there’s some fundamental technological components to NFTs as a way to sell value to your audience and sort of continue to gain value from that from secondary sales as what you do becomes more and more important to the world.” At the same time, Patreon’s current rules of service disallow many crypto-related functionalities. However, in this case, the theme was more important than the details.

“If you read excerpts from the executives’ talk, it seems clear that there is definitely interest from the platform to explore how they can embrace, more generally, what we would call the digital assets space. That may be through cryptocurrencies or NFTs, or perhaps even a way where followers could ‘buy’ a creator’s success ‘low’ and ‘sell high.’ What this talk really illustrated is that the blockchain allows us to explore so many different ways of creating assets and value. Things that, only a few years ago, would have been a totally foreign concept. Now, blockchain is making the impossible possible,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

At the talk, Gutman is quoted as saying:

One thing that I think Patreon has always been committed to at its core is making sure that we’re creating a sustainable, long-term path for creators, right? It’s not just a burst of monetization… So I think we’re certainly interested in evaluating and understanding how NFTs or some of the underlying technologies help us create that sustainable long-term earnings for creators. But I think when it comes to the hype around sales of individual assets and what not… not that we wouldn’t offer that if we felt it was really valuable to creators, as part of the broader portfolio of what they can offer… but I think for us, really thinking through how we’re continuing to ensure we’re creating a sustainable recurring future for creators is why we’re evaluating the crypto space more broadly.

“Which way Patreon eventually goes, or if they go any way at all --- that really shouldn’t be the headline here. If you’re looking at what has much wider implications than Patreon’s path forward as a company… it's that Patreon has all of these choices to begin with. The headline is that blockchain technology allows them to create the reward system which best fits their platform. Together, with their creators and their patrons, they will find the right blend that fits their brand. That’s not a question. The smorgasbord of options from which they get to select, that’s what’s truly impressive,” said Gardner.

Yesterday’s talk came on the heels of a September livestream which discussed the topic. At that time, Patreon’s Head of Policy, Laurent Crenshaw, said that “we’ve heard from a number of creators who have been interested in the opportunity to offer exclusive memberships and benefits to their patrons through a coin or token, a digital item that they can hold onto that shows that they are part of your fan club. And so we thought that at the very least, we could explore the opportunity of making that type of offering allowable under our guidelines.”

“There are so many ways they could go here. They could change the rules and allow for ICOs. They could create tokens which served as a currency for a particular creator. Either, possession of the token would give the holder a certain benefit to be redeemed through the platform, or, alternatively, it would give the holder a ‘share’ of the creator’s future success,” said Gardner. “Really, the options are limited by their imagination and their ability to develop the technology.”

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Modulus has provided its exchange solution to some of the industry’s most profitable digital asset exchanges, including a well-known multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable institutions, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“Patreon is a single platform with an existing user base of creators and patrons. Ultimately, they could develop a token-based system that was particularly tied into their brand and useful only through their website, or, alternatively, they could go another way and create partnerships which would allow creators special access into some blockchain-based rewards systems which are being created by other developers and startups. What’s happening in the space right now really is pretty special. There’s so much innovation, and anybody with an idea and the ability to execute can become very successful,” Gardner said.