An Interview with Access Protocol
Bridging the Value Gap in the Creator Economy Through Onchain Engagement
With over 6 billion daily internet users consuming content, the gap between value created and captured in digital media has reached a critical point. Access Protocol tackles this challenge by reimagining creator monetization from first principles, replacing Web2's failing models with an innovative staking mechanism that drives both user engagement and lifetime value. By combining onchain monetization with Tapestry’s decentralized social features, the protocol enables creators to build portable, lasting relationships with their audiences while capturing more of the value they generate.
We interviewed Access Protocol's founder, Andreas Nicolos, to learn more about this vision.
How did you start working on Access? What inspired your interest in an onchain creator economy? And how has Access evolved to today?
We started Access after looking at the media landscape as a whole and seeing failures around b2c monetization. After some deep research we learned that leading companies were failing to penetrate even a fraction of a percent of their audience.
On top of that companies were incurring significant costs due to credit card fees, chargebacks, and additional infrastructure expenses.
Naturally, crypto is the first thing that comes to mind when considering disintermediation. We then turned to existing onchain solutions in the market and found they were even worse than web2 solutions!
None of the implementations we found, be it NFTs, crypto payments, or creator tokens, took key business metrics into consideration (Average Revenue Per User - ARPU, Lifetime Value – LTV).
We immediately began from first principles and designed a system from the ground up based on meeting the needs of media companies highlighted above.
Staking was clearly the route to take based on its ability to provide incentivized offerings to users (Increases ARPU), while the ‘set it and forget it’ element tackled lifetime value.
Since launch, and for the last year, Access has been a top of funnel onchain monetization and engagement layer for creators of all shapes and sizes. It enables anyone to build onchain relationships with their audience in order to deliver content to them in a number of different mediums (web2 or crypto media – NFTs).
Creators and media at large are such an important part of our day to day lives. It's my belief that content is the most undervalued commodity in the world. There are ~6 billion people on the internet every day, all of whom interact with content in some way, shape or form.
Based on that stat alone, there is a massive disparity within media and content between value created and value captured. Now that we’ve established this layer for engagement, we are starting to look towards driving value down the funnel.
Naturally we are focusing on crypto based media and content creators. The question we are trying to answer is how can bridge this value gap and enable creators on platform to capture more value through onchain engagement – driving user behaviours down funnel.
Liquidity is at the crux of all financial markets. I often think about ‘social liquidity’ and the barriers to achieve a desirable and valuable amount of social interaction to bring consumers and creators together.
How do you envision onchain social data being valuable to creators in ways that traditional social engagement / metrics aren't?
Every creator has an ‘opportunity cost’ associated with the platform they decide to be active on. Onchain social graphs are inherently portable and composable. There have been many cases in both web 2 and crypto where platforms shut down, taking a creators blood sweat and tears with it.
Think of how we’re all effectively “stuck” on platforms like Twitter because our networks aren’t portable (I love twitter, not hating). Onchain social eliminates these moats, empowering creators to try new platforms and tap into new audiences all while retaining their entire history of engagement (their livelihood!).
As a result:
Applications will be more competitive, ultimately delivering better products and services to creators and users
Applications can tap into the aggregate value of the network they’ve built on enabling faster GTM and product cycles, lower cost
Liquidity is at the crux of all financial markets. I often think about ‘social liquidity’ and the barriers to achieve a desirable and valuable amount of social interaction to bring consumers and creators together.
Decentralized social graphs like Tapestry enable network participants both large and small to contribute and benefit to an aggregated pool of social liquidity, creating a flywheel only social behemoths have been able to enjoy until today.
Can you share an example of how decentralized social interactions benefit creators on your platform?
Web2 likes and comments never made sense for Access. Our monetization is onchain and portable. We wanted social interaction on platform to mirror those same qualities. Decentralized social interactions do just that.
The creative process is not just producing content, but receiving feedback and adjusting based off audience reception. Creators can now get feedback on a piece of art they’ve just minted, or a research piece they’ve just published.
It is still early in our implementation of Tapestry but we have exciting plans to intertwine social actions with our onchain monetization.
What has your experience been like working with Tapestry to implement decentralized social features? What capabilities have been most exciting to you?
Working with tapestry has been incredibly easy and rewarding. The team has taken a user first approach listening to our needs and making adjustments as needed for our use case. Implementing likes and comments on access has been our first step to add a layer of social engagement. We plan to build this out across our application and deliver more meaningful touchpoints for creators and consumers.
We’re particularly excited about the convergence of social activity and monetization.
For example, enabling an artist to mint NFTs to subscribers who have both staked X amount of ACS and commented on Y pieces of art in the past. Creating social experiences that have rewarding outcomes for users is definitely a flywheel we’ll be taking advantage of as we progress our integration.
Looking ahead, what other social primitives do you think should be moved onchain to benefit creators and their communities?
Blockchains are inherently financial, and finance is inherently social. I see a future where onchain actions (buying, selling of an asset) converge with social. Commenting on your favorite coffee shop’s instagram after buying an espresso will be no different to interacting with your favorite dapp. Social primitives will be the building blocks that help consumer applications ingest your onchain social identity and deliver valuable experiences tailored to your preferences - no different than instagram delivers you ads.
The holy grail that Tapestry unlocks is the potential for user attribution and incentivized ad networks. Earlier on I touched on the disparity between value creation and value capture. This will 100% be something that closes that gap.
At the end of the day media companies and creators benefit from attention and action. Many people feel this is controversial, only because web2 behemoths have captured all the value leaving very little for creators and absolutely nothing for users.
Our next step at Access is to drive onchain value down funnel. We’re-ideating around an onchain attribution mechanism for creators to refer their users to other applications and rewarding them for their onchain actions. Tapestry will be an important piece in understanding the profile of users that complete onchain actions and understanding the correlation between the incentive and composition of their onchain identity.
If you're a developer looking to integrate portable social features and staking mechanisms into your platform, we'd love to hear from you.