Blockchain and Web3 technologies aim to give people the ability to exert more ownership over their content on the internet. For artists and creators, this could actually make it easier for them to profit from their work.
On Yahoo Finance’s Financial Freestyle podcast, Chris Lyons, president of Web3 Media at a16z crypto, Andreessen Horowitz’s venture capital crypto fund, broke down blockchain’s eventual integration into everyday life and how this shift can actually make creating content online more profitable.
“You’re going to start to see brand new social networks that are going to come out where you can actually have 100% ownership of your followers,” he said
Lyons used American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as an example.
“Back in the day, [Basquiat] sold a painting for $25,000,” Lyons explained. “50 years later, that same piece is now sold for $100 million, and how much was he able to take from that?”
Only the original $25,000, Lyons confirmed.
“But if that was on [blockchain],” he continued, “what happens now is that there’s a smart contract that’s already written inside of it, so you can say, ‘I’m going to get 10% of every single secondary transaction that’s now being sold.'”
Lyons theorized that through the integration of blockchain, creators and artists will be able to have a “zero-to-one engagement” with their fans, removing the middlemen that currently take a cut of most online transactions.
“New music platforms are going to come out where instead of having to make a million [purchases] for an artist to have a sustainable living, now all you need is 1,000 true fans that can every day buy your CD, buy your merch, buy your tickets — and you can create an actual living off of that,” he said.
While blockchain remains unfamiliar to many who aren’t well-versed in cryptocurrency and digital transactions, Lyons suggested it could become as ubiquitous as GPS technology.
“I have a theory that I’m basically calling ‘hiding the wires,'” he said. “The next generation of blockchain or even AI technologies — you’re not even going to really notice or know that you’re using them.”
“You talk about financial freedom,” Lyons added, “but we still are in all these systems that are creating centralized ownership, and I think that the only true path forward is decentralization and blockchain.”
