Built for the next generation attention merchants cryptographic products are converging towards SocialFi

Original Author: MASON NYSTROM
Translated by: TechFlow
The internet is a market for attention, and the competition for attention is rapidly intensifying. Cryptocurrencies have ushered in a new chapter for the attention economy, providing a more efficient mechanism for valuing attention through ownable attention assets such as content, social graphs, memes, algorithms, and platform social activities.
However, cryptocurrencies are not only changing the value of attention but also its ownership.
In 2016, Tim Wu introduced the concept of the “attention merchant,” describing how publishers and platforms profit from user attention. Cryptocurrencies offer users a new path to becoming their own attention merchants, reclaiming the value of attention through the ownership of attention assets.
This trend is most evident in SocialFi (social finance), where users can own memecoins, influencer access keys, content, and other attention flow assets. By allowing users to directly engage with attention-based assets, SocialFi platforms challenge the traditional power structure of the attention economy, transforming users from passive consumers into active participants and new attention merchants.
The Frontier of SocialFi
SocialFi is gradually becoming an important category in Web3. Crypto social networks like Farcaster are rapidly developing, with over 75,000 daily active users. Telegram bots, combining group messaging and transactions, facilitate billions of dollars in trading volume. Information markets are also evolving towards financialized social graphs, like Trends.market on Twitter, Fantasy.top, and Swaye, Perl, and Arrina on Farcaster.
While not all social platforms come with financial incentives, SocialFi represents an evolution from indirect evaluation of social capital to more efficient evaluation of social and attention assets. As a socio-economic technology, cryptocurrencies enable social applications to add other financial elements, such as asset trading or native integration of financial primitives at the application layer (e.g., Friendtech’s bonding curve). The SocialFi trend is driven by consumers’ strong demand to own and trade attention assets. Users choose to spend time on applications where they can earn revenue based on their attention or enhance social entertainment through financial gaming.
For example, Fantasy is a fantasy sports trading card game and information market built on the social graph of X (formerly Twitter). Fantasy allows creators to monetize their social media presence while enabling players to earn rewards based on their intuition and understanding of certain social accounts. Elsewhere, new social networks like Friendtech, Unlonley, and Sanko allow creators to directly monetize their social interactions through chat access passes. This benefits early users who purchase access passes, rewarding them for allocating attention to undervalued creators and groups.
The core benefit of new information markets and social networks is that creators and users are now attention merchants, owning attention assets within these applications and monetizing attention through their use.



Many applications have responded to users’ desire to embed commerce and finance within social experiences:
– Messaging → Transactions within messages
– Gaming → Ownable assets and real-money-based in-game economies
– Social → Ownable social graphs, channels, content, and platforms
– Memes → Scene coins and derivative meme assets
– Information Markets → New markets based on social entertainment, influencers, and social capital
– Exchanges → Issuing new protocols based on social and attention assets
Over the past year, the SocialFi ecosystem has rapidly grown, with attention asset exchanges (e.g., memecoin protocols), PvP (player vs. player) social games, new forms of information markets, and financialized social network companies emerging. This expansion is driven by the maturation of crypto infrastructure in scalability and usability, supporting new types of consumer experiences (e.g., mobile PWAs), cheaper transactions (e.g., L2), and faster application iteration cycles through improved development tools (e.g., account abstraction and wallet-as-a-service tools).



Social Networks
Social networks can be broadly categorized into two types and their respective creator monetization models: unidirectional and bidirectional.
Unidirectional networks are platforms where there is a one-way relationship between creators and fans. This one-way relationship is often accompanied by direct monetization models such as subscriptions (e.g., Substack, OnlyFans, Patreon) or direct ad revenue sharing with creators (e.g., YouTube, TikTok).
Bidirectional networks are platforms where there is a two-way relationship between creators and fans (e.g., Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Snapchat). Bidirectional social networks allow users to monetize by spreading content rather than restricting its dissemination, such as through token-gated access (e.g., influencer-gated chats). Web2 bidirectional networks like Twitter and LinkedIn have historically made it harder for creators to directly monetize their influence. Instead, creators have had to adopt strategies like affiliate programs, driving users to other monetization sites (e.g., Twitter → Substack), or promotional campaigns.
By redefining users as new attention merchants, SocialFi provides multiple new monetization options for these two types of social networks. Unidirectional networks give creators the ability to further monetize their top-level audience through tokenized content, influencer access, limited-time rewards, or social status. Unidirectional networks like Drakula and Friendtech tokenize content and creators, enabling top creators to earn income from trading volume. Sofamon showcases a token model where users can gradually purchase an aesthetic item (e.g., avatar outfit) until they own the whole item, which can then be worn.
Web3 social networks offer new monetization options. For example, monetizing usernames and namespaces can generate revenue for valuable namespaces scaled to millions of users. Additionally, bidirectional social networks can better utilize in-app transactions. This can manifest as in-network marketplaces, channel storefronts, or in-app games.
The key difference between Web3 bidirectional networks and Web2 social networks is that new attention merchants—users and creators—will be able to better monetize their activities. For example, imagine if Reddit subreddit moderators could own their channels, earn revenue based on ads displayed, or earn a portion of transactions going through their channels due to their community management.
PvP Social Games
With the maturation of consumer infrastructure, PvP (player vs. player) social games are seeing new developmental prospects. Notably, a wave of Survivor-style competition games like Crypto The Game and Blessed Burgers offer users new digital-native and highly social gaming experiences to earn rewards. Other applications like Rug.fun or PvPWorld provide game theory strategy games where users can collaborate with others to win prizes. In contrast, most mobile games in Web2 monetize attention through traditional advertising or offer users the option to pay to skip cooldown periods. Game developers now have new business models; social gaming becomes more like content, with developers releasing multiple short-term applications that offer condensed gaming cycles, where users can earn significant rewards and then move on to the next game.
New types of social games should focus on the following optimizations: multiple winners, increasing engagement; easy-to-start games, making average users feel they have a high chance of winning; and social interactions, further enhancing the virality of these games. These proposed game dynamics are more incentive-aligned compared to web3 games, which historically tended to pay-to-win models or farming-first rather than fun-first games.
New Markets and Exchanges
The main application scenarios for cryptocurrencies revolve around market creation, especially the issuance of new asset classes, bringing existing assets on-chain, or expanding access to digital-native assets.
Information Markets: Information markets like Polymarket have the potential to create more efficient political markets and support the creation of new event markets based on real-world events, culture, and business.
Attention Exchanges: Launch platforms like Pump and Ape.store allow users to create new assets based on the trait of attention (e.g., memecoins). Elsewhere, Sofaman tokenizes status and culture by allowing users to create a digital avatar based on Telegram and sell branded clothing on a bonding curve.
Telegram Bots: Telegram bots bring marketplaces and social financial games into the messaging experience, providing users with more convenient experiences.
Points and Pre-token Markets: For teams testing user behavior and experimenting with dynamic incentives, points have always been an effective incentive strategy. Points markets like Michi and WhalesMarket and pre-token markets like Aevo can help create more efficient token markets.
Multiple sub-trends are driving the creation of new markets and exchanges. Firstly, the verticalization of social and financial platforms increases, driving these applications to issue new types of assets. Secondly, the increase in ownership of on-chain activities by users through earning points, tips, and tokens expands the range of assets users can interact with, encouraging the creation of new trading venues. Lastly, users now interact with assets like memecoins, feeling a greater sense of autonomy. Similar to real-world cultural assets like sneakers or music, users feel control over the popularity and potential appreciation of these cultural assets because the value basis of these assets (user attention) is controlled by the end consumer.
Built for the New Generation of Attention Merchants
The social field is undergoing a paradigm shift, redefining the relationship between users, creators, and attention. At the core of these trends is the idea that users and creators are no longer merely the supply and demand sides of the attention economy but can become their own attention merchants.
Designing new financial or social infrastructure is challenging, let alone merging the advantages of both into a unified experience. However, those who can quickly experiment, test new consumer behaviors, and capture emerging consumer behaviors and preferences will lead the development of the next generation of SocialFi networks and applications.
Original Link