In the ownership economy, it’s not just creators benefitting - it’s their communities too. In fact, the very definition of a creator is changing, from creators monetizing individually from fans, to building wealth *with* their communities.

It's hard to overstate how profound a shift this is. And while the results thus far have been jaw-dropping, you don’t have to squint too hard to see that much of what’s driving these outcomes is unfettered speculation more than any form of real utility.

Speculation alone is insufficient to create lasting communities. Today we're seeing communities built primarily on hype and FOMO, but in the long-run, value will be driven by strong and lasting communities, not the other way around.

For creators, engagement has always been predicated on utility, entertainment, and community. Fans invested their time, minds and hearts ‘for free’. Augmenting that with ownership and shared incentives is the revolutionary promise of web3. Replacing it with speculation is not.

A problem with current approaches is that communities become disjointed when pure speculators share little overlap with fans that existed before. Instead of creating one community with aligned incentives, there’s a risk of creating fragmented pockets with misaligned incentives.

Ultimately we see 2 main problems today: 1) Most tokens can only be acquired via purchase. This inherently favors speculators over true fans, and excludes those who have time, attention, or passion to give but not capital.

2) It’s hard to create real utility with today’s tools. In its absence, there isn’t much to do with a token *but* to speculate. There are now hundreds of platforms to mint new tokens, and still few tools to unlock utility around all these new assets.

To create healthy and lasting communities, we need more ways to earn membership and ownership in communities, and a greater focus on real utility. At Bonfire, we’re focused on helping web3 communities unlock this full potential.

We’re building infrastructure to enable creators to host their communities on their own branded platforms, powered by their web3 assets. Dw, we won’t make you run your own server ;) Your brand, domain, and tokens, our white-label tools to make it easy.

We’re also focused on better tools for token distribution - 📥 Create custom airdrops, from smart contract to branded claim page - 💰 Bounties & engage-to-earn tooling - incentivize & reward members for contributing with their time, skills and attention, not just their wallets

Finally, we make it easy to layer additional utility and functional benefits on top of your existing assets. Whether you want to gate access to merch, events & experiences, or content, we provide the tools and templates to make it easy.

Over the past year, communities empowered with ownership have exploded onto the scene, supporting the core thesis of the ownership economy - share value with those who create it. We’re on a mission to build a community-owned platform powering this next era of the creator economy

And we’ve got an ambitious roadmap ahead. If you geek out on questions like: - What is engage-to-earn in the context of Creator DAOs? - How do we bridge offline/online? - How do we onboard the next 100 million people to web3? ... then come join us around the fire. It’s cozy 🔥

Want to work with us? You can drop into our DMs or apply here: Lastly, if you’d like to become a creator or community on Bonfire, please fill out this form and we’ll follow up ASAP.

Lastly, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge a few of the amazing folks that have supported us along the way - the whole @rally_io fam; the Bonfire core team; our early creators and partners - we wouldn't be here without you. Onwards 🚀

Full announcement post:

@bonfire_tweets Cc @DavidSpinks

@MrScottMeyer @DavidSpinks 👀👀👀

@bonfire_tweets Can't wait to try it!

@land_ofrandom les make it happen