On the 30th of June, we hosted a Live Q&A Session on Twitter Spaces with our CEO, Roosh Reddy, and our COO, Diego Muñoz. As part of the conversation, we answered several questions from our community and discussed the future of social tokens.

For those of you who weren't able to attend, we’ve compiled a summary of the most important points below.

Let's get started!

Mintted's platform is currently off-chain. Are you planning to transition coins to being on-chain?

The idea is that artists and creators on Mintted get to decide at what stage they want their communities to go on-chain. We want to keep the flexibility to exist off-chain for creators, but also give people the chance to jump into web3 if they're ready.

How are the new creator launches coming along? Has anything surprised you?

Recently, we launched one of our creators, Ben Wade “Coach”. His token has done quite well. A big thing he did at the launch of his token was an AMA on Twitter, where he got a lot of questions. And the people who submitted questions got tokens. He saw a huge jump in engagement with the rewarded AMA he ran.

Moving forward, what is it that you’re focusing on at Mintted?

Our goal is to bring more creators to the platform.

Virtual influencers are among the most interesting. If you haven't heard of it, check out Lil Miquela (a fictitious entity acting as a human manifested as a life-like robot). We think it's awesome that someone who isn't even a real person can create a tokenized version of themselves.

In addition, we're excited about how we can help up-and-coming artists build their online communities and move from the physical to the virtual world.

Speaking of traditional artists, what can you do for them?

Artists' fans are likely to be more numerous than people who own any art piece they've made. So for fans who can't afford a piece or who just haven’t bought one yet, tokenization is a way to show their support. By tokenizing their communities, they'll know how many people have supported them since the beginning, and also be able to measure it.

How else can tokens help creators and fans?

We believe tokens are really powerful bonding mechanisms for both the creators and their fans. They kind of feed into each other. They create a new version of a fan, which is a stakeholder and a fan combined.

What can Mintted do to help creators engage with their communities?

In our opinion, tokens are a bridge between the physical and virtual world. For example, Ozzy, one of the creators we've launched, wants to invite some fans to LA or Guanajuato to stay with him, which is something he couldn’t have just offered to his regular social following.

With platforms like Instagram and TikTok, it's hard to figure out who are the most engaged fans.

For macro and micro-influencers, why are social tokens important considering the problems they face in today’s social media platforms?

Influencers are mostly micro, and they don't have the means that a big celebrity like Taylor Swift does. The token is the mechanism that allows people that don't have these means to act like a company. It’s hard to create long-term value on Instagram or similar platforms. Constant content creation is required, and the rules can change overnight. Tokens let creators think like a business and come up with strategies without worrying about third-party rules.

In addition, liking is so vague. It's impossible to tell what kind of fans someone has by how many likes they get. And engagement is no longer enough. When creators use a platform like Mintted, they’re essentially getting qualified engagement scores for their fans.

People respect effort as a marker of something in a world where anyone online can type anything, say anything, and be anything. We think there are going to be more and more of these token-gated IRL experiences coming into the spotlight as time moves on. Because they'll be the connection to something in the real world.

How do creators bring trust into the virtual world through tokenization?

This is definitely something that is going to take time. We'll need the creators we launch to show us the way. But we think it's important for fans to trust the creators and see that it's a long-term project.

We also think that the lower volatility token model we’re developing is going to help with that. We're looking forward to telling you a little more about our model once the white paper is published.

Can tokenization create a two-way relationship between creators and fans?

Let's say you lived in 1718, or before then. Back then, almost every relationship was pretty established. This is because you had people in your immediate vicinity whom you knew well and for many years, if not decades. After society started moving to cities, and there was a whole urbanization movement, we started forming these loose ties. Eventually, the Internet made it seem like it was ultra-loose. There are people we know in real life, and there are people we don't know, but feel strong ties with, like influencers. Although they don't know you exist, people idolize or deify the influencer in their minds, even emotionally. But it's very one-sided.

So we think that tokenization will be the key to making the system bilateral. At the very least, it will be the tool that completes it. Tokenization will, however, be enabled by collaboration. A good example is polls. In addition to connecting with their fans, polls allow creators to get to know them and make decisions based on their feedback. That's like saying: “This is the impact that it had on my decisions and you were a part of that.”

Suppose you could tokenize anyone, who would you choose and what would they do with their token?

Diego: I would tokenize music artists like Anderson Paak. In the video game industry, I would tokenize Dunkey, who makes video game content. In terms of using the token, he could organize events to play together. It would be interesting to play with that person and to talk about different aspects of the game. This would include why it is designed that way, what he thinks of the visual effects, etc.

Roosh: I would tokenize Packy McCormick who writes a newsletter called “Not Boring”. He was the first newsletter writer to start a VC fund. He started it off with his readership. So he built a loyal readership who loves to read about the companies he dives into and the landscapes they inhabit. But he made it fun. His focus was on finance, but he also inserted memes. As a result, he built a successful readership and audience and then started a fund off the back of that. I think he's invested in 50-60 companies through this newsletter fund. It's amazing! It's like a way to build an audience for one thing and then monetize it. In my opinion, that's an excellent model for us. In your role as an artist, or as a creator, you've developed this kind of close friendship with an audience. Next, let's find something slightly related but different where everybody wins if you succeed.

Do you think that examples like Packy McCormick's (financial-related) might become a new way of collaborating?

Pawel, our CTO (Talent), calls it social dividends. It’s his idea that you will get access and that access is a dividend. So it would be another type of collaboration.

Let's imagine creators follow the same perspective as pro athletes. Among 100 college athletes, only two will make it to the pro ranks. That’s a very small percentage. They will probably earn tens of millions, while the other 98 won't. Imagine if everyone had social tokens and bought each other's tokens, or if it was automatic. Let's say 5% of career earnings are distributed among the group. That sounds interesting!

How can you launch your coin if you’re a creator? Is there a process for this?

On the site, there's a waitlist form. We'll reach out to you for an initial outreach call. Once everyone agrees, we'll schedule your launch. Next, we'll figure out what you'll do for a few months. This includes how you'll engage your audience, how you'll introduce the token, or how we can help you along the way, among other things. It's a long process, but we're just making sure everyone gets the most value from both their audience and their launch. We also have a fantastic Talent Team that will assist you throughout the process.

Compared to other platforms, what are the advantages of Mintted?

Our communities are our priority, which means we'll put in a lot of effort to make sure creators are successful. We think they just threw you on Rally or Roll, and then it's up to you to figure out what to do next. We don't think that's the best approach.

For a space like ours, when playbooks don't exist yet, we should be creating those with our creators. We think that's a great focus. Another thing to consider is that most audiences do not have wallets and might not own crypto yet. That's why it's so crucial to be able to transact in fiat. We make that way easier for fans than some of our competitors.

How can creators build wealth with their fans while asking them for money?

First of all, we've seen a shift in mindset within the NFT community and the tokenized space in general. People will take a while to see it if you look at it like a normal product. In other words, it's a transaction. It's something you purchased, and you cannot get a refund. That product cannot be converted back into money. Unlike NFTs, tokens are an asset in the sense that you can convert them back into money. At that time, the price could have changed, that's possible. However, you should always be able to exchange it for some sort of currency. And that's really interesting. As soon as people understand that, it completely changes how they view both their assets and the framing around them. Their expectations aren't necessarily immediate. They understand that it will take time for the creator they've bought into to really deliver value to them, so they are prepared for that. So moving society to that level of financialization is just such a cool concept.

Will social tokens be the creators' currencies?

Yes, definitely. In other words, creators’ social tokens will be their dollar, or their euro, so it will be their currency. Basically, it will be their community's currency. Essentially, the sooner it can be hammered into the audience that this is like a currency for basically all actions and commodities that creators are planning to release, then the better we think the uptake and understanding will be.

What are the benefits of social tokens over NFTs in your opinion?

In NFTs, fractionalizing access is really challenging to do. Social tokens, on the other hand, are so immediately easy to fractionalize. For example, if I buy 1000 tokens of my favorite artist and I only need 100 to join his community, I can sell the rest and still be a part of it.

Also, if creators don't succeed, NFTs are okay. But if creators succeed, the NFT will become a victim of their success. This is because fans can no longer buy more since the price will go up so much.

For example, we have something called our Fan Tier System. We think that's a great way to adjust how many tokens creators need. As the demand for them rises, they can shift those tiers to open access or reduce access, and those original fans will still see all the benefits.

On the other hand, NFTs can't really serve as an economic currency. They can't be spent. We'll hopefully see a substantial uptake in token spending on utilities as we move forward. We think it has a lot of potential.

Does Mintted only work for celebrities and mega-influencers' communities, or does it also work for micro and medium influencers' communities?

For now, we think micro to medium communities will be best suited. Mega celebrities like Tom Cruise have passed the point where social tokens would have helped him. In this case, it's just an add-on, but if you're making $20M a movie, you won't spend so much time on it.

Social tokens thrive when creators start early, build that super fan base, reward them over time, and then consistently deliver value to their token holders so there are more token holders over time. Unless the larger creators can think up really innovative uses for the token, we think the ship has sailed for them.

Is there any cool news you'd like to share with your community?

We're going to show you some screenshots of our new creator UI soon.

Our app is shifting to a darker version, something that matches the website a bit more, but still fits with the creators’ aesthetic. There's also going to be more customization.

Experience Mintted For Yourself

We hope you got some new insights about Mintted from our CEO and COO! However, the best way to experience Mintted is to try it for yourself.

You can check out the beta version of the Mintted platform here, and start supporting your favorite creators today.