This post continues our series on how coins might unlock better ways for readers to support the work they love, and for writers to feel appreciated and get paid for their writing.

In this post, we look at how coins and limited-edition NFTs could combine to find the right balance of patronage and self-expression in a new, compelling way.

Here are the previous four posts:

• Rethinking How Writers Get Paid – why open editions haven’t worked and what coins could unlock.

• Why Will Readers Buy Coins? – a breakdown of motivations behind why readers support writing & creative work.

• Are Coins Better at Enabling Patronage? – a valid critique on how coins, in their current form, have a hard time at supporting patronage.

• Can Microtransactions Work? – exploring the decision fatigue of post-level coins and how that may evolve over time.

Let’s dive in.

Despite the cool down over the last few years, I've always been a fan of limited-edition NFTs as a powerful tool for self-expression and forming community. A digital symbol that signals what you care about & helps you find new friends who feel the same, bringing people together around shared values and interests.

As we've covered in this series, I also really like the idea of making coins feel more approachable and less transactional, mostly aimed at tapping into non-speculative motivations. For example, hiding numbers in the purchase flow as much as possible, avoiding "buy" & "sell" verbiage, minimizing "coins" and other crypto references, and so on.

Bending the experience in this direction may be a little more off-putting to pure speculators. But based on what we've seen drive Patreon, Substack, and even the large social media platforms, the market opportunity around patronage, self-expression, utility, and other non-speculative motivations feels much larger than betting & pure-play speculation.

Brining both threads together, maybe there's a way to combine coins and limited-edition NFTs in the same purchase.

Imagine a tiered purchase flow that lets readers choose their level of support (at a post level, maybe that's $1, $5, or $10+). The lowest tier could be for pure patronage, a little tip of appreciation. The middle tier could tap into a little signaling value, providing a 1 of 20 limited-edition NFT. And at the highest tier, we could really lean into badging value, providing a 1 of 3 NFT.

In both cases, the NFT could serve as a powerful, shareable badge to signal that you were early, that you were a top supporter, and some other form of self-expression. Compared to a coins purchase, NFTs are much more likely to be shared, which helps bring more attention, readers, and commerce to the writer.

Yes, the reader will also receive coins based on the price of the coin and their level of support, but that's somewhat secondary to wanting to support and the badging value. (Of course, we’ll need to strike the right balance on copy in the purchase flow, clearly communicating what’s happening without overwhelming readers with crypto jargon or technical details.)

This specific example could be a totally dumb idea. But the broader point is there may be an opportunity to mix different monetization features, tapping into the unique benefits of each, while obscuring the crypto-ness of it from the reader. I think this could be a compelling problem space to play in.

The section above lightly tip-toes around a common critique in crypto: ecosystems struggle when they mix speculators and non-speculators.

This is a totally valid concern and the tension is real. We’ve all seen what happens when the wrong crowd shows up to a good party: the energy shifts, the good vibes disappear, and people start heading for the door.

Speculators can do the same thing. If our goal is to enable some kind of special relationship between readers and writers, speculators can commodify that magical bond, totally ruining the vibes and shifting the gravity of the ecosystem from goodwill to transactional.

BUT, a couple of opinions to consider:

• It's possible for people to have more than one motivation in one purchase.

• It matters a lot what motivates them the most vs. what is more tertiary.

The best examples usually come from some type of collectibles within various fandoms.

Being a Phish fan, an example close to home are show posters, specifically Jim Pollock prints. Fans arrive early to Phish shows to buy these prints & go through the annoying experience of being at a Phish show with a poster tube.

Most people buying these prints do so out of fandom & show them off in their offices, homes, etc.

But, some folks end up selling them, and there's a decent secondary market for these posters. Financial gain is not a primary motivator for people buying these prints (there's much easier ways to make money!), but the opportunity for the price to appreciate may encourage more people to buy them and/or pay more for the prints, both of which grow revenue for these prints & expand the broader Phish economy.

In these types of cases, maybe 90% of the motivation is patronage and self-expression, and 10% is speculation. This feels sustainable and grows the long-term Phish economy. If the inverse is true, and 90% is driven by pure speculation & making money, I think that bends back toward cyclical, zero-sum economies (a la memecoins) that are comparatively smaller.

So yes, I believe you can mix patronage, self-expression, and other motivators with speculation. But to grow the long-term economy around creative work, it's incredibly important to keep the good vibes and bend the outcomes, as much as possible, toward more durable motivators.