Crypto-Native Monetization

In this section, we go through some of Focus's crypto-native monetization mechanics, made possible by the micro-payment functionality that crypto uniquely enables.

Token trading. On Focus, the creator of a token can set any trading fee they want, including a trading fee of 0% if they so choose. When they do so, half of this fee goes to the creator, a quarter goes to their referrer, and the final quarter is taken as fee revenue for the Focus platform. In addition, a flat 10 basis points is allocated to the Openfund DEX, where users can "Advanced Trade" Focus tokens. 100% of the fee revenue portion is used to buy & burn $FOCUS tokens, and this amount is charged no matter whether the user executes the trade on Focus, on Openfund, or elsewhere (thanks to the global fee mechanics of the DeSo Blockchain).

Paid reposts (aka decentralized ads). Focus turns advertising from a centralized model to a peer-to-peer model using a new mechanic we introduce called simply “paid reposts.” With Focus, any user can submit offers directly to creators to repost their content, and those creators can choose to either accept the offer, instantly get the money, and repost the requested content (with a “promoted” tag so people know it’s an ad), or reject the offer if they feel the content is not relevant enough for their audience. This new model allows creators to directly monetize their reach with just a few clicks through their inbox a day. During onboarding, all users set a “minimum offer threshold,” which could be thousands of dollars for big influencers, to prevent spammy offers from reaching their inbox. Offers below this threshold are still visible to the creator, only in a separate tab that is essentially a spam folder. Creators can also set a separate “minimum tip,” which they receive unconditionally, and which must be included in order for the offer to show up in their inbox at all (similar to the paid message fee). Amazingly, all offers are sent and managed fully on-chain using DeSo’s on-chain messaging infrastructure, meaning more sophisticated third-party apps can be built to help creators manage their personal media empires. The Focus platform takes a simple 10% fee from each offer that’s accepted, which is used to buy & burn $FOCUS.

Paid messages. Important people are constantly bombarded with spam on traditional social media platforms, to the point where virtually no important person has truly open DMs. Focus completely eliminates this spam problem by having every user set a “minimum message price” during onboarding, which requires any non-followed user to pay a certain amount in order for a message to reach the creator’s inbox. Messages that do not pay will still be visible to the creator, only in a separate tab that is essentially a spam folder. While the message price for ordinary users may be low, e.g. $0.01 for a typical user, for important users it could potentially be thousands of dollars or more. Imagine how much someone would be willing to pay to make 100% sure that a top venture capitalist sees their company’s pitch, or that a key strategic partner gives them a first look. As far as we know, this kind of paid messaging system has never been tightly coupled to a Twitter-like broadcast social network, and we believe it could vastly improve the quality of connections that users make. Amazingly, all messages are stored and delivered fully on-chain thanks to DeSo, again enabling third-party apps to build “power user” tools to help very important people manage their influx of messages, whether paid or not. The Focus platform takes a simple 10% fee from each message, which is used to buy & burn $FOCUS.

Uncensored generative AI. Generative AI has gotten to a point where, with just a few samples of a creator’s likeness, entirely new content can be generated. However, this functionality has yet to make its way into mainstream platforms– until now. Focus will give creators the full power of generative AI by allowing users to generate new content using the images that a creator has previously uploaded. Users will simply select images of their favorite creator from their history and provide a prompt to generate wholly new images. Creators will be able to set a fee for each query a user runs, and to earn an automatic royalty off of any income generated by the content (e.g. tips if the post is reposted). Focus will take a simple 10% cut of this revenue that will be used to buy & burn $FOCUS.

Unlockable content & subscriptions. Platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans pioneered subscriptions and unlockable content, and they process billions per year in revenue. But payments on these platforms aren’t anonymous, the platforms employ harsh censorship regimes, and the platforms suffer extremely high fiat payment processing fees. What’s more, cashing out from either platform requires creators to go through a very cumbersome KYC and approval process, which violates creator privacy, rejects many creators, and which most users frankly don’t have the patience for. Focus fixes all of these issues inherently by allowing creators to monetize with instant, permissionless, anonymous, low-fee crypto payments using their DeSo wallet. Although it may seem like a small improvement over existing platforms, it is important to note that no platform exists where users can pay creators for content anonymously, and we believe the market for such a service could be quite significant. What’s more, DeSo’s extremely low fees are critical to enable these new use-cases. Amazingly, all unlockable and subscription content is stored fully end-to-end encrypted on-chain, meaning that only the creator and their subscribers can see the content. Nobody else, not even the Focus devs can even see it! The Focus platform will take a simple 10% fee on this feature to completely undercut existing platforms, which charge ~15-30%, and 100% of this fee revenue will be used to buy & burn $FOCUS.