Web3 Leader Spotlight: Jason Kan
This week, we had the privilege of sitting down with Jason Kan, the Co-Founder of Atticc and EarlyFans. Atticc serves as both an ecosystem and a community for SocialFi enthusiasts, while EarlyFans opens avenues for creators to monetize their content.
Jason is an advocate for social experiments on the blockchain, and enthusiastically shares his perspectives on SocialFi at major Crypto events to spread knowledge and push adoption.
Follow Jason on X @0xAtticKnight
Can you share what initially attracted you to the Web3 space and how your journey led to the creation of EarlyFans?
I got interested in crypto in 2017 after reading the Bitcoin whitepaper. I was drawn to the possibility of creating an internet native financial system that is decentralized, fair and inclusive. I guess BTC price increasing by 200% one month after I bought it was a contributing factor to me expanding my interest to other blockchains like Ethereum as well.
In late 2021 I got into NFTs, and the social element of it triggered my idea of creating a decentralized social platform. That led to the creation of Atticc with my co-founders. Atticc was our first SocialFi product, and now it is growing into an ecosystem and a community of SocialFi believers.
What does SocialFi mean to you, and how do you envision its adoption evolving in the near future?
To me, SocialFi is about the financialization of social assets. More specifically, the pricing, issuance and trading of social content and influence. Social asset is the biggest growing asset class of our time, everyone is spending the majority of their spare time on social media, and people increasingly make purchase decisions for both digital and physical goods based on what influencers say on social media.
This is a display of the power of content and influence. However, none of this content and influence can be priced efficiently according to supply and demand. This is where crypto comes in. Crypto is extremely good at pricing internet native assets. I believe SocialFi is a sector in crypto that is most overlooked but has the biggest potential.
How does EarlyFans effectively tackle the monetization challenges that content creators often face?
Currently whether it's in web2 or web3, creators need to monetize by selling ads. This is reducing their monetization potential, distracting them from creating great content and lowering their brand value by forcing their audience to look at things they don't care about. EarlyFans enables creators to monetize directly from their content starting with Twitter.
EarlyFans has an interesting mechanism that turns crypto speculation into creator monetization, with a creator token mining system that took inspiration from Bitcoin's proof of work. Creators will earn profit share from the speculative trading activity without having to sell ads. Fans have a chance at earning from speculation and investing in their favourite creators. Ultimately, EarlyFans will foster closer creator-fan engagement while allowing creators to monetize without selling ads.
What advice would you give to upcoming founders who are looking to make a mark in this space?
In the current stage of Web3 adoption, SocialFi needs a lot of bold experimentation. Your first attempt will probably fail, but with new technologies, early attempts are rarely what will work in the end. As long as you keep trying and learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of other people, you will constantly improve and eventually achieve some success. It is a competitive field for people with a superficial understanding of SocialFi, but there is a blue ocean of opportunities for founders who persevere and improve themselves.
