Kyla Scanlon: Gen Z Creator on Why Decentralization and the Metaverse Matters
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Episode Summary
The creator economy, crypto, and the metaverse are probably the buzziest tech concepts this year and Kyla Scanlon straddles all three of these worlds in a visceral way. She is a financial content creator, she is building a financial education company founded on decentralization principles, and she is also a Gen Z who experiences unique circumstances that other generations have not.
She helps explain some popular web 3 concepts through the lens of why it’s valuable for her life as a creator and Gen Z:
DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are a new way for communities to form corporations essentially. A popular type of DAO is for investments where a group of people can pool money, have fractionalized ownership, and vote on investment decisions. A use case Kyla is excited about is investment DAOs that help support and fund creators
NFTs (non fungible tokens) are pointers to virtual or physical assets and are unique and stored on the blockchain. They help verify ownership and enable new ways to transfer ownership. From a creator control standpoint, Kyla believes NFTs open up new doors to monetization. For example, she can make her TikTok videos NFTs and sell that on the open market for anyone who values her videos, and create a more direct revenue stream than her payouts from TikTok
Social Tokens essentially allows you to create stocks of yourself, a famous example is Alex Coin. You can tokenize and therefore monetize different aspects of you (such as the content you produce, your brand, being a part of your community, etc) and let people invest in the things they find valuable. While this is a novel way to monetize for creators, the dark side is the exhaustion that comes with always needing to be on and setting boundaries between your private self and what you give to the public
DeFi (decentralized finance) is a financial system that doesn’t rely on central intermediaries, and leverages smart contracts on the blockchain. Lending typically yields a higher interest than with traditional banks and is a promising alternative for younger generations
She also illuminates the unique challenges of her generation and why they development in decentralization and the metaverse matters to them:
Growing up digitally native: means that the majority of their livelihood and relationships are anchored in the online world. This was a major cause of loneliness and erosion of offline social relationships, but an opportunity for online experience to be more safe, immersive, and community oriented
Centralized control of creator content: being a creator is now a very popular profession for Gen Z, yet they are much at the mercy of major centralized platforms such as TikTok and Youtube. Decentralized ownership, such as through NFTs, will enable creators with new monetization funnels
Information overload: Gen Z is perpetually in a reactive state to an abundance of information which takes away from necessary introspection critical thinking. Kyla believes richer metaverse experiences will help people synthesize information and experience more than scrolling on 2D feeds
Threats to the economy and core institutions: given the perpetual raise of the debt ceiling in the US and the fear of defaulting on its debt lends itself to this generation finding alternative governing and economic solutions such as DAOs and cryptocurrencies
About the Guest
Kyla Scanlon is a popular financial content creator and educator. She started options trading in high school, previously worked at Capital Group and was a participant in the TAP program. She is now building a financial education company to onboard people to the world of investing. You can subscribe to her financial content on substack, Youtube, TikTok or wherever you like to consume your content.
Show Notes
[3:55] The power and influence of creators
[8:30] DAOs as a community organizing vehicle
[13:50] NFTs, digital ownership, and how they can serve creators
[20:40] Social Tokens and the idea of monetizing every aspect of yourself as a creator
[23:55] The loneliness of being a creator
[25:40] Living life more online than offline
[27:40] The Metaverse as a solution to information overload
[30:20] Loneliness
[32:35] How to create the right education framework for younger generations
[34:35] Defi and the future of finance
[36:10] Why decentralization matters for GenZ
[38:00] The Debt Ceiling, economic collapse, the Fall of Rome