“Staking is the new following.” So says Jure Zih, founder of an innovative NFT startup, Clout.art, set to launch later in August.
If Zih is correct, we could see the worlds of social media influencers and NFTs collide in a way that will forever change the influencer landscape.
Clout.art is a platform that enables content creators to turn social media posts into NFTs. In other words, it allows taking a piece of content from the past, which is freely available on a social media site like Instagram or TikTok, and creating a unique NFT monetized as a saleable asset. The kicker is to make the NFT they must delete, or burn, the original post.
As Zih explains, “Social media timelines are all about ‘now’. Many content creators have very popular posts, but they are buried under the content that came later. With Clout.art, creators can revisit pivotal moments in the history of their digital self and make those moments available to their fans, and other collectors, as NFTs.”
Creator Economy Powered by NFTs
Blockchain provides an alternate mechanism for creators to connect with their fans directly. According to Zih, in addition to popular posts soon disappearing from view as new content is created, social media influencers must also concede that they do not own the medium and thus cannot monetize their creativity directly. The solution to this has been third party sponsorships, but this leads to questions of authenticity.
The Clout.art platform is built around its utility token, SWAY, using one of the first decentralized social media protocols, Sway Social. Creators will be granted SWAY to mint NFTs from their social media posts. But where things get interesting is how fans and collectors can use their SWAY tokens to connect with content creators.
Based on DeFi mechanics, each content creator will have their unique staking pool, called the Creator pool. SWAY holders can stake their tokens against individual content creators, thus sending a market signal that there is demand for their content. When a creator sells an NFT, the rewards are shared with all the participants in that pool.
“Creators won’t just profit from their audience,” enthuses Zih. “Now they will profit together with their audience. This ties in both creators, fans but also collectors as it introduces a whole new idea of social capital and NFTs as the underlying assets for the economic model to work. We’re looking at a new paradigm where staking is the new following.”
Launching with an Airdrop
Ahead of the platform launch, Clout.art is doing an airdrop to reward users for minting their Instagram content into NFTs. Users participating can get from $25 and up to $1,000 in SWAY tokens for successfully minting and burning one of their posts.
“We encourage users to pick one of their earliest, most liked, and commented posts and mint it into an NFT. It is how they become eligible for a guaranteed airdrop of 350 and up to 15,000 SWAY, which we will distribute after our token generation event. All NFTs minted are carbon neutral and free for creators, thanks to our partnership with Polygon” adds Zih.
Blockchain technology, and the most popular current use case, NFTs, might well signal a change in how creators monetize their creativity. It will be interesting to see how the social media channels respond in the future as services like Clout.art provide alternative channels for Creators to reach, connect with and monetize their audience.
For more information on Clout.art, visit their website or sign up for the airdrop at clout.art/airdrop.
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About Clout.art
Clout.art powers the creator economy of the future by turning the most valuable content, such as your most successful Instagram posts, into unique NFTs. As a microservice, a marketplace, and a staking platform, Clout.art is where creators and fans come together to create, grow or exchange social capital through the $SWAY token.