Attention is an asset class. Every click, scroll, and engagement generates data and economic value, but users lack property rights over it. Wallets like MetaMask and Phantom are the first primitive for claiming this property.
the-creator-economy-web2-vs-web3
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Why Your Attention Should Have a Wallet Address
The Web2 attention economy is a one-way value siphon. This analysis argues that a self-custodied wallet address is the non-negotiable technical primitive for users to capture the value their engagement creates, transforming them from data points into economic agents.
introduction
THE ATTENTION ASSET
Introduction
User attention is the ultimate unmonetized asset class, and crypto wallets are the mechanism for its direct capture and settlement.
Wallets are not just for tokens. They are identity and intent broadcasters. Protocols like Farcaster and Lens demonstrate that a wallet address is the root for social graphs and reputation, creating a portable, user-owned profile.
The ad-tech model is obsolete. The current system extracts value via opaque intermediaries. A wallet-native model enables direct value transfer, turning attention into a liquid asset settled on-chain via microtransactions or points systems.
Evidence: Platforms like Galxe and RabbitHole have built multi-million dollar economies by routing incentives directly to user wallets, proving the model's viability for attention-based rewards.
thesis-statement
THE PARADIGM SHIFT
The Core Argument: From Data Extraction to Value Attribution
The internet's fundamental business model is broken, and programmable ownership is the fix.
Attention is a financial asset currently extracted by centralized platforms like Google and Meta. Your clicks, searches, and social graphs generate billions in ad revenue, but you receive zero direct economic benefit from this data exhaust.
Programmable ownership changes the unit of account from data to value. Protocols like Farcaster and Lens Protocol demonstrate that social graphs can be user-owned assets, enabling direct monetization and portability that Web2 platforms structurally prohibit.
The wallet address is the new identity layer. Unlike a username, a cryptographic keypair is a self-sovereign, verifiable, and composable identity. This allows your contributions—be it content, compute, or curation—to be directly attributed and rewarded.
Evidence: The creator economy on platforms like Mirror and Highlight shows that direct patronage via NFTs and social tokens captures more value for creators than algorithmic ad-share models, which often retain over 50% of revenue.
key-trends
ATTENTION AS CAPITAL
The Building Blocks: Protocols Turning Attention into Assets
Your engagement—clicks, views, and interactions—is a valuable economic signal. These protocols are building the rails to capture and monetize it on-chain.
01
The Problem: Attention is a Public Good, Value is Extracted Privately
Platforms like YouTube and X capture billions in ad revenue from user-generated content and engagement, while creators receive a tiny fraction. The economic model is opaque and extractive.\n- Value Leakage: >50% of ad revenue is captured by intermediaries.\n- Zero Ownership: Users have no stake in the platforms they build.
>50%
Value Leakage
$0
User Equity
02
The Solution: Attention-Backed Assets & Social Tokens
Protocols like Farcaster Frames and friend.tech tokenize influence and community access. Your social graph and engagement become collateral for a new asset class.\n- Direct Monetization: Creators capture 90%+ of revenue from tokenized access.\n- Programmable Equity: Tokens can be integrated into DeFi for lending, staking, and governance.
90%+
Creator Take
DeFi
Composability
03
The Problem: Engagement Data is Silos, Not Capital
Your on-chain activity—DeFi trades, NFT mints, governance votes—is valuable signaling data. Today, it's locked in private analytics dashboards like Nansen and Dune, monetized by data aggregators, not users.\n- Data Asymmetry: Funds profit from retail flow data.\n- No Portability: Your behavioral history isn't a transferable asset.
Private
Data Silos
$0
User Payout
04
The Solution: EigenLayer & The Restaking of Intent
EigenLayer allows staked ETH to be restaked to secure new services. This model extends to attention: your staked engagement (e.g., following, curating) can secure social graphs and data oracles.\n- Capital Efficiency: A single stake (ETH or social token) can secure multiple services.\n- Signal Staking: Your curated feed becomes a cryptoeconomic security guarantee.
$15B+
TVL Concept
Multi-Use
Capital
05
The Problem: Discovery is Centralized & Rent-Seeking
Finding new apps, tokens, or content relies on centralized app stores, Google SEO, and paid influencer shills. This creates pay-to-play gatekeeping and stifles organic, merit-based discovery.\n- High CAC: Projects spend 30-50% of raises on marketing.\n- Low Signal: Discovery channels are flooded with paid promotions.
30-50%
Marketing Spend
Low
Signal Quality
06
The Solution: Attention Markets & On-Chain Curators
Protocols like CyberConnect and RSS3 create decentralized social graphs where users are paid for curation. Your "like" or share becomes a verifiable, monetizable endorsement.\n- Curator Earnings: Users earn fees for early, high-signal discovery.\n- Sybil-Resistant Reputation: On-chain history proves authentic taste, not bots.
Earn Fees
Curator Model
On-Chain
Reputation
WHY YOUR ATTENTION SHOULD HAVE A WALLET ADDRESS
Web2 Siphon vs. Web3 Flow: A Value Transfer Comparison
Quantifies how value generated by user attention is captured and distributed across centralized platforms versus decentralized protocols.
| Value Transfer Feature | Web2 Siphon Model (e.g., Meta, Google) | Web3 Flow Model (e.g., Farcaster, Brave) |
|---|---|---|
Creator Revenue Share | 45-55% (Platform keeps majority) |
|
User Data Ownership | ||
Ad Revenue to User | 0% | Up to 70% (via BAT rewards) |
Platform Take Rate on Transactions | 15-30% (App Store/Play Store) | < 1% (e.g., Uniswap, OpenSea) |
Protocol Governance Rights | ||
Portable Social Graph/Assets | ||
Average Payout Time | 30-60 days (net terms) | < 5 minutes (on-chain settlement) |
Value Accrual Asset | Corporate Equity (private) | Protocol Token (liquid, e.g., $DEGEN, $NOTE) |
deep-dive
THE IDENTITY LAYER
The Wallet as Primitives: More Than Just a Bank Account
A crypto wallet is the foundational identity primitive for the internet, not a container for digital cash.
Your wallet is your internet passport. It is a globally unique, self-sovereign identifier that authenticates you across applications without centralized platforms like Google or Facebook. This decentralized identity enables new trust models.
Wallets are programmable agents. With Account Abstraction (ERC-4337) and intent-based architectures, wallets like Safe execute complex, conditional logic. They become autonomous delegates for actions across protocols like Uniswap and Aave.
Attention becomes a monetizable asset. Every interaction—from a social post to a game session—is a signed transaction. Projects like Farcaster and Lens Protocol treat your wallet address as your social graph, creating direct creator-to-audience value flows.
Evidence: Over 50 million active addresses on Ethereum interact with dApps monthly, not just for finance but for identity, governance, and social coordination.
risk-analysis
ATTENTION AS AN ASSET
The Bear Case: Why This Is Harder Than It Looks
Monetizing attention is the holy grail of the internet, but Web3's approach faces fundamental technical and economic hurdles.
01
The Attention Oracle Problem
Proving the existence and quality of human attention on-chain is a Byzantine Generals problem. Current models rely on off-chain attestations from centralized platforms like X or Google, creating a trust bottleneck.\n- Sybil Resistance: Distinguishing a real user from a bot farm requires sophisticated, often privacy-invasive, ML.\n- Data Provenance: The chain needs a verifiable cryptographic proof that a specific wallet performed a specific attention act (e.g., watched a 30s ad).
~0
Native On-Chain Proofs
100%
Off-Chain Reliance
02
Microtransaction Friction vs. Ad Revenue
The average CPM (cost per mille) for online ads is ~$2.80. Distributing this to users via on-chain microtransactions is economically impossible with current L1/L2 fee structures.\n- Gas Cost Inversion: A $0.0028 reward is consumed by a $0.10+ transaction fee.\n- Aggregation Necessity: Requires batched settlements via systems like EIP-4337 account abstraction or layer-2-specific solutions, adding complexity.
$0.0028
Avg. User Reward/View
> $0.10
Base L2 TX Fee
03
Privacy-Preserving Attribution
Advertisers demand attribution (did view → lead → sale?), but users rightfully demand privacy. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) like those explored by zkPass or Sismo offer a path, but at a cost.\n- ZK Overhead: Generating a proof of ad engagement without revealing identity or behavior history is computationally expensive.\n- Data Schema Alignment: Creating a universal standard for attestations that works across Google Ads, Meta, and emerging platforms is a coordination nightmare.
10-1000x
ZK Compute Cost
0
Industry Standards
04
The Liquidity & Speculation Trap
Projects like Attention Token or social DeFi protocols often collapse into pure speculation, detaching from the underlying attention economy. The token becomes a vehicle for trading, not a utility for redeeming attention-based value.\n- Velocity Problem: Tokens earned are instantly sold on Uniswap, never used in the intended ecosystem.\n- Regulatory Gray Zone: Classifying an 'attention token' as a utility vs. a security is an unresolved legal battle, scaring off major advertisers.
>90%
Speculative Volume
High Risk
SEC Classification
future-outlook
THE ATTENTION ECONOMY
The Endgame: Frictionless Value Layer for Human Engagement
Blockchain's final utility is not finance, but a programmable settlement layer for all human attention and interaction.
Attention is the ultimate asset. Every click, view, and social signal is a micro-transaction currently captured by centralized platforms like Google and Meta. A programmable value layer redefines this, attaching a direct, ownable financial primitive to engagement.
Your wallet is your identity. Protocols like Farcaster and Lens Protocol demonstrate that social graphs built on-chain create user-owned networks. This shifts power from platform algorithms to individual sovereign data vaults.
Micro-payments enable new economies. Systems like Solana's compressed NFTs or Arbitrum's low-fee environment make rewarding a million users for a meme economically trivial. This kills the ad-based model.
Evidence: Farcaster's daily active users grew 50x in 2024, proving demand for sovereign social infrastructure. The market cap of attention-based tokens exceeds $10B, signaling investor conviction in this thesis.
takeaways
ATTENTION AS AN ASSET CLASS
TL;DR for Builders and Investors
User attention is the most valuable commodity on the internet, yet its economic value is currently captured by centralized intermediaries. On-chain primitives are flipping the model.
01
The Problem: Attention is Valuable, But You're Not
Platforms like Google and Meta monetize user attention via ads, creating a $500B+ market where the user gets zero direct revenue. This is a broken economic alignment.
- Value Leakage: Your data and engagement generate revenue you never see.
- Platform Risk: Your audience and income are subject to arbitrary algorithm changes and bans.
$0
User Share
100%
Platform Capture
02
The Solution: Direct Monetization via SocialFi & DePIN
Protocols like Farcaster, friend.tech, and Helium create direct, programmable economic relationships between attention and capital.
- Creator Economies: Fans can invest directly in creators via social tokens or keys, aligning incentives.
- Proof-of-Physical-Work: Attention (e.g., mapping, connectivity) is rewarded with native tokens, turning users into stakeholders.
10x+
Creator Earnings
Tokenized
Audience
03
The Infrastructure: On-Chain Ad Stack & Data Markets
A new stack is emerging to route ad spend and data value directly to users, bypassing traditional ad-tech. Look at Brave (BAT), Oasis Network, and data DAOs.
- Micropayments: Users earn for viewing ads or contributing anonymized data.
- Composable Data: User-owned data becomes a liquid asset in on-chain data markets.
-70%
Ad-Tech Tax
User-Owned
Data Assets
04
The Alpha: Early-Mover Network Effects
The first applications to successfully aggregate monetizable attention on-chain will capture immense value, similar to early social platforms.
- Protocol-Owned Liquidity: Fees from attention-based transactions accrue to the protocol treasury and token holders.
- Composability: On-chain attention graphs become a public good, enabling hyper-efficient discovery and monetization apps.
100x
Network Value
New Primitive
Attention Graph
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