Why Melon Means More Income for Content Creators

The world we live in today is driven by the Internet and this includes the digital content that keeps us entertained. Whether it is tweets, memes, videos, and so on, content rules the web and drives engagement across multiple platforms. However, behind every piece of viral content is a content creator who is usually not compensated directly for their work.

This lack of compensation for creators, whose work drives engagement and leads to revenue for the platforms on which they operate, has been a bone of contention since the early days of the creator economy.

Why NFTs Could Be a New Monetization Method for Creators

In response to the creator compensation issue, a blockchain startup has put forward a solution that leverages one of the most popular trends in the industry: NFTs. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs as they are commonly called, are digital representations of ownership of both real-life and digital assets and have become immensely popular over the past years, being used to sell everything from artwork to albums.

Melon has created a new platform through which creators can engage with their fans by converting their virtual content into NFTs which fans can then buy. NFTs means that virtually anything can be turned into a tradable asset, and this includes viral social moments.

These viral moments have become culturally significant facets of the Internet and once turned into NFT, not only is their ownership verified (as opposed to the existing system where no one person could ‘claim’ ownership of them) but they essentially become rare collectibles.

The fact that the ‘virality’ of such content can be easily verified only makes them more valuable. Unlike a piece of art whose value might be arbitrary, the number of likes, comments, retweets, and so on that a piece of content receives acts as an objective representation of its value.

Apart from such metrics, the cultural value of some of these pieces of content also matters. Owning content that sets new trends is meaningful to social media fans and allows the creators to be rewarded for their creativity.

This is where Melon comes in, with an immersive user interface and a system that is welcoming towards both fans and creators. Melon will also be one of the most star-studded NFT launches this year, with over 100 creators already signed to the platform, and a combined reach of over 300 million followers. This top talent includes SwagboyQ, a TikTok creator with over 20 million followers, and Omar Bolden, an NFL star and Super Bowl champion. For these sorts of creators, Melon offers a way to monetize their content without the limitations, censorship, and control of centralized creator platforms.

As for the fans, Melon provides direct access to their favorite creator in a way that few other platforms do along with a chance to own a part of Internet history. Most of the NFTs sold on Melon come with exclusive benefits such as one-on-one calls with creators and merchandise. 

Melon wants to connect fans and creators in novel ways that benefit both parties while breaking the monopoly that centralized platforms have on creators’ ability to monetize their own content. In the long term, Melon’s goal is to become the social layer of the metaverse. The fact that Melon is decentralized means that the assets traded on the platform are interoperable and can proliferate across the decentralized web. In the future, Melon NFTs claim that it will be the perfect entry point for creators and fans to trade social assets in the metaverse.

Melon Moving Forward 

Melon has made some announcements regarding the next stage of its rollout. This will involve the launch of its own native token, $MELON, which the company says will power the next evolution of the creator economy. The token will be the ERC-20 standard, which means that it can operate across multiple web 3 platforms. Those who hold the token will be able to enjoy the lowest fees for using the platform and vote on key decisions regarding future developments via membership to a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).

The Melon app, which will work on both desktop and mobile, will be rolled out in the first week of December 2021, along with the first creator NFT drops. Following this, the $MELON token will be launched.

What Melon is doing could potentially change the way that we view and interact with content forever. Rather than content being something we engage with passively, it could be an investment, a way to support creators, and a new way to collect valuable memorabilia of digital history.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. The content was purely for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.