Create-to-Earn overview
What is Create-to-Earn (C2E), and what does it have to do with NFTs? 🖼
Create-to-Earn (C2E) is one of the many ways that crypto tokenization is revolutionizing the world. This term covers the wild world of NFT art, the lucrative markets of streaming rewards, and many other emergent opportunities that center around one simple idea — rewarding people for their creative output.
NFT art in particular dominated headlines in 2021, and is still a hot topic in 2022. Regardless of what you think about NFTs and the huge amount of hype that surrounds them, the technology itself has the potential to change the lives of creatives all across the globe. From painters to musicians, video makers to poets — C2E can ensure that artists earn fair income for their work.
In this article we explore the world of C2E, from the very basics through to how Cassava can help you make the most of these amazing opportunities — including how Cassava makes getting involved in NFTs easy.
The creative world we live in
Creative content is everywhere. Every video on YouTube, each short on Vskit, all of the music you listen to, art in the real world — all of it was created by someone. Even our comments and private photos on social media are technically creative content, and every single post adds creative value to the broader platform.
But, as with most things, there’s a catch. As wonderful as it is to create for the sake of creating, at the end of the day people need to eat. For many of us, we don’t need to think twice about contributing something to our social media accounts, but for artists, their images, words and creations are their livelihoods. And in the age of digital replication, these creations are valued much lower than they should be.
Think about it for a moment. If an artist makes a digital painting and shares it online, all it takes for someone to steal it is a ‘right click’ followed by a ‘save as’. This takes seconds, and is entirely free. Even artists and photographers with real-world prints need to be weary of the internet — a high-resolution scan or photo can very easily be taken to a professional printer and copied. Of course, this would never be the same as owning an original painting, but for many people it’s good enough. And importantly for the artist, there are very few incentives for people to pay them for their work.
But it isn’t just artists who need to be worried about creative rewards. When we said that every contribution to a digital platform is valuable, we meant it literally. Companies like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter make a lot of money from creative works — but they don’t create anything themselves. They instead sell the value created by your contributions, but don’t give you a cut of the profits. These platforms effectively steal creative materials without paying anything to creators.
Yes, it’s a pretty good reason to get angry. Talented artists and regular people deserve to be compensated fairly for their work. Achieving this, however, has been difficult and out of reach for most people.
Difficult, that is, until now.
Create-to-Earn and NFTs
The Create-to-Earn (C2E) economy is revolutionizing the way we value creative output. Art, music, words — even your posts on social media — are all now being rewarded fairly, just like they always should have been.
NFTs are one of the great examples of the C2E economy. In reality, an NFT is nothing more than a digital certificate of ownership. An NFT isn’t the art — it’s just the proof saying who owns something.
This idea is nothing new. Most galleries will give a certificate of authenticity to collectors who buy art in real life. This certificate verifies that the painting is real, and gives the owner confidence when buying or trading. Sure, anyone could take a photo or make a print — but that painting and the certificate that says it’s the original are what’s truly valuable. If the certificate is lost or destroyed, the painting is in trouble; unless someone can professionally verify the authenticity, it could just as well be a fake. And in this case, the painting becomes worth a whole lot less.
With NFTs, this proof-of-ownership becomes stored on the immutable, eternal blockchain. And because they’re digital, we can also link digital works to them. For artists, this is a huge deal.
Because an NFT can’t be duplicated or forged, artists can produce work and associate them to an NFT for sale. Sure, the image itself can be saved as many times as you want — but the NFT saying who owns the original can never be taken. It’s unique, and it’s valuable.
But there’s something else that makes NFTs special for artists.
NFTs have property that allows a portion of the sale value to be distributed to a particular wallet. This can be set up to trigger every time the NFT is sold. When you traditionally buy a painting, for example, the artist earns money on the first sale. But if the buyer decides to sell to someone else, the artists won’t see anything from the resale. With NFTs, however, artists can earn a percentage of every sale, automatically, forever.
More than just NFTs
As exciting as NFTs are, C2E is benefiting creatives in many other ways. Thanks to crypto tokenization, protocols like Cassava can actually reward audiences for watching videos or leaving comments. This is because the smart contracts controlling the platform can be designed to recognize the value that these contributions have, and fairly reward the contributors for them.
These systems also benefit more traditional creators as well. Someone who produces a short video, or an indie artist releasing a song they produced themselves at home, deserves to be rewarded for what they’ve created. Traditional models restrict the earnings to those at the very top of the pyramid — big musicians, influencers and creators. But with C2E, just like how audiences can earn rewards, all creators can get rewarded too.
C2E with Cassava
In addition to providing a rewards infrastructure for our network of partners to give back to those contributing to their platforms, Cassava unlocks the power of C2E with our powerful, all-in-one app. We make it easy to create, store and trade NFTs without needing external marketplaces, meaning all artists can begin to explore the incredible opportunities that this technology brings.
Our $CSV rewards token is also designed to empower the C2E economy. Our vision is to build a world where all creative exercises — including simple actions like leaving a comment — get rewarded for the value that they create. With $CSV and our network of partners, this world is becoming a reality.
Make sure you’re following all of our channels so that you don’t miss anything, and get in touch if you’d like to know more about how you can earn from the creative economy ✨
The Cassava Team 🎁
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