Vitalik Buterin Calls for Creator DAO to Lift Crypto Content Standards
- Creator DAO model shifts incentives toward clear quality signals and away from pure hype.
- Current creator tokens favor status over merit, which blocks rising voices from gaining reach.
- Substack shows curated networks can shape standards and fuel stronger content ecosystems.
Vitalik Buterin has called for a major rethink of how cryptocurrency platforms reward online creators, arguing that the current wave of creator tokens and social crypto projects has failed to raise content standards. Instead, he is proposing a curated Creator DAO model designed to reward quality, discovery, and long-term contribution rather than speculation or celebrity.
In a detailed proposal shared publicly on X, Buterin said the internet’s core problem has shifted. Two decades ago, platforms struggled with content scarcity. Today, creators contend with an endless stream of AI-produced content that can flood any channel within minutes. In that environment, he said, the challenge is not output. It is a discovery. And current creator-token models have not kept up with that reality.
Why Current Models Keep Rewarding Popularity
A large part of Buterin’s critique stems from what he saw when reviewing creator-coin rankings on platforms such as Zora and BitClout. The same names, celebrities, influencers, and individuals with established followings show up at the top.
According to the report, the pattern holds even when the platforms were built to give new voices a chance. The behavior, he suggested, isn’t malicious. It’s structural. Markets attached to social reputation tend to elevate those who already have it, leaving little room for quieter talent.
One such, not cited by Vitlaik, is the collapse of Friend.tech on Base as a telling example. Its tradable access keys surged, cooled, and eventually fell apart when speculation overwhelmed any link between price and content. Consequently, activity drained away, and the token never recovered.
Substack Shows What Careful Curation Can Do
However, to show that another model can work, Buterin looked outside crypto. He noted that Substack has become one of the strongest platforms for independent writing, largely because it made deliberate early choices about which creators to support.
Those choices helped shape the culture of the site and attracted readers who wanted a particular kind of depth. It wasn’t the subscription mechanic alone. It was the curation. In his view, crypto tools tend to avoid this sort of hand-selection.
They want systems to self-organize. But he argued the content ecosystem no longer supports that assumption. With so much noise online, some form of guided structure may be necessary.
How a Creator DAO Would Function
Buterin’s alternative leans on a membership framework used by Protocol Guild. According to him, a Creator DAO would have a fixed number of members, each voting privately to admit or remove creators. If the group grows too large, it will split, keeping governance manageable.
Each DAO would define its lane: long-form essays, music, education, regional commentary, or anything else it wants to own. Tokens remain part of the system but play a different role. Anyone can launch one.
However, the value changes only if a Creator DAO decides the creator belongs inside its roster. When that happens, funds inside the DAO buy and burn the creator’s token supply, giving holders an outcome tied to the DAO’s judgment rather than market noise.
Related: Visa and Mastercard Say Stablecoins Struggle to Win Daily-Use Adoption
Turning Speculation Into Quality Signals
The structure changes what speculation means. Instead of chasing momentum, traders try to anticipate which creators a DAO will admit. Their bets surface talent the DAO may want to review. The final call stays with the creators themselves, who, Buterin noted, tend to recognize quality in their fields.
The proposal lands at a moment when crypto platforms are rethinking growth strategies. Buterin’s message is blunt: without stronger curation, the online creator economy will continue rewarding attention rather than substance, and crypto can do better.
