Summary

Scapeshifter is the first universal digital content platform built from the ground up to sustain an NFT based ecosystem that gives power back to the content creators. In other words, it is a universal contribute-to-earn social platform.

problem statement

The content industry is broken. It is controlled by big platforms where most of the profits go.

Those platforms make money by taking a huge cut from the content creator's money, or they harvest the consumer's data for advertising.

banking

The content creator needs a banking account – otherwise, there is no way for him to make money. 

If the consumer has no banking account he is left with free platforms like tictoc or youtube that harvest his personal information in exchange for giving content away "for free". If the consumer has a bank account he can get rid of ads or buy stuff on platforms like udemy.

But the fact that the creator needs a bank account leaves billions out of the loop that doesn't have access to a banking system.

Wouldn't it be nice if the creative power of those billions could be activated within a content ecosystem that would directly incentivize the content creators – without the need for a bank account?

"Single content type" platforms

Digital content platforms mostly cover one content type only.

I can find a platform for stock photos, tutorial videos, and so forth.

That leads to the fact that on most of those platforms any user is either a contributor or a consumer. 

If I am a photographer I mostly contribute photos and not so often buy them.

If I am a contributor on udemy – my focus is on selling my courses, maybe not so much on buying others.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a more balanced content ecosystem that is so diverse in regards to content that each user could be as often a consumer as a contributor?

Jumping back and forth between the digital and analogue space

Following on the above:

since most platforms only serve one content type a contributor can't do much with the credits he earned on that platform. He has to wait until the platform owner transfers money to the contributor's bank account. Only then can the contributor take this money to PayPal and bring it back into the digital space to buy other digital content on a different content platform.

If you think about it: there is no technical requirement to jump back and forth between the "digital content world" and the "analog money world" if you want to exchange digital content. It can all be done within the digital realm.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Photographer could use the credits he earned on a content platform directly to buy different content without leaving the digital realm?

sharing

sharing is great for traditional platforms but doesn't help the content creator much.

If a youtube video or blog post is shared 1,000 times it doesn't return much to the creator of that piece of content – despite the obvious relevance for so many people.

If one video of a thousand different creators is shared a thousand times each – youtube has a million more hits – without any of those video creators seeing significantly more money.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a universal content platform where the content creators would benefit a tiny bit each time their content is handed from one hand to the other?

Solution definition

So we want a platform that does the following:

  • no need for a bank account – the platform uses her own crypto coin for all transactions on the platform
  • no free content – you buy content or you share it – and the creator gets a cut each time his content goes to another consumer
  • a vast variety of content types - so each user can become a content creator of one content type and a consumer of some others. Thus earning money and spending money on the same platform without leaving the digital realm
  • a balanced variety of content types – further supporting the idea of a balanced creator/consumer role of each user
  • option for scarcity by creating each piece of content in the form of an NFT: each content creator can decide how many copies of his content should be able to exist on the platform: from a unique piece of art to maybe 100,000 copies of a blog post
  • several ways of owning a copy of a piece of content:
    • buy from the creator (first market)
      • all profits go to the creator
    • buy a copy from a user who resells it
      • 90 % goes to the user, 10% goes to the original content creator
    • make an offer on a copy that one other user owns
    • getting a copy of a piece of content as a gift from another user
      • The user who is giving away the copy pays 10% of the original price to the original content creator, the receiver of the gift pays nothing
    • the original creator gives away copies for free
    • a user can ask an owner of a piece of content to give away his copy as a gift
  • decentralization: the platform runs on the blockchain without any central authority to control it.
  • Minimum transaction fees: for each transaction the platform owners get a 10% share of the value of the transaction. Leaving 90% of the first and secondary market to the content creator or the content reseller
    • the more valuable a contributor gets for the platform the less the platform will charge – going to to as low as 5%
    • 1% of these fees are distributed amongst the most valued content distributors

Content types

over time more and more content types will be onboarded to the platform to enable more and more users to become creators and consumers of digital content.

Each content type gets its own very specific front end for maximum user experience for every use case. In addition to that, each user's profile shows all content he created and owns - also in a specific way for each content.

kind

Following the social proof of digital art in 2021, we start the platform with 100s of artists who will be selling their artworks as NFTs on our platform.

The artists are carefully curated by the organizers of art historians, gallerists, and recognized collectors. This ensures quality content right from the start

Project definition for visual art content: Gallerista

Cooking recipes 

Dating profiles

DIY videos

Music

"TicTocs"

blog articles

videos

Stock photos

software

3D models

Example user journey

  • a painter from Germany
  • a single mom from Argentina
  • a 14-year-old boy from Uganda
  • a musician from France

The artist from Germany

He creates a series of paintings. 8 creative periods during his career, one painting for each period and 25 copies each.

He sells some of them and together with the second market he gets a total of 1,200.

He uses part of them to buy some nice Jazz music from a musician on the same platform.

Also, there is an interesting profile of a single girl that he looks into for 10

The single mom

The single mom wants to find a new partner so she sets up a profile, creates 1,000 copies, and prices each copy 10. Whoever wants to contact here would need to purchase a copy of this profile. 300 people are interested in her – she gets 27(30minus 10% share for the platform)

One of the guys who bought the profile reconsiders after reading it as a whole but thinks she might be a good match for a friend of his – so he gives the girl's profile to this friend as a gift. guy pays 1 (10 % of which 1/10 of a cent go to the platform.

The single mom also has some precious cooking recipes from her grandmother. She brings 10 of them onto the platform with 10,000 copies each. In total, she sells 3,000 for 10 cents each. so 270 for her (300 – 10% for the platform)

she now has 297 €

The 14-year-old boy from Uganda

who has a great sense of humor puts up short videos of his everyday life like he formerly did on tictoc.

He gets some followers who view his content frequently so he makes around 100 a month.

Later on, he finds an exciting tutorial movie from a successful french jazz musician on "how to learn jazz guitar" - he gets a copy with the credits he earned from his video. In addition to his "TicTocs" he now sells additional videos of him playing guitar"

The musician from France

Instead of streaming his content on Spotify, he distributes his new album on shapeshifter. He is a jazz musician with a small but supportive audience. He creates 1,000 copies of 20 songs. In total, he sells 12,000 copies for 1 each.

In addition to that, he puts up a training video "how to learn jazz guitar". 100,000 copies - sells each for one.

In the meantime, he purchases some Argentinian recipes on the platform with the coins he made on the platform.

roles

Content Creator

a content creator is a person or organization that uploads content to the platform and mints a certain amount of copies in the form of NFT to sell them

content consumer

A Content Consumer buys a piece of content either from a Content Creator or from a Content Reseller. Or he gets a piece of content as a gift from another user

content resellers

content distributors

content aggregator

a content aggregator can be a news platform or an art exhibition for example. 

They form a partnership with content creators and setup profiles and content for those content creators 

The content aggregator can then include those profiles and the content into his side and can offer the content creators with individual links that they can include in their websites.