Vitalik Buterin's New Blueprint: How Prediction Markets and DAOs Will Reshape the Creator Economy?

In today’s era of information overload and rampant AI-generated content, the core contradiction of the creator economy has shifted from “motivating creation” to “discovering high-quality content.” Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a new model that combines prediction markets and DAOs, aiming to inject a truly content-intrinsic valuation system into the creator token ecosystem, which has long been plagued by “celebrity effects” and speculation.

Problem Diagnosis: When Creator Tokens Become a Game of Fame and Speculation

The current mainstream creator token platforms have fundamental flaws in their incentive mechanisms. They often equate social attention directly with value, resulting in top tokens on these platforms being predominantly held by celebrities with already high social status, rather than by creators who stand out through content quality.

This model creates a “recursive speculation” vicious cycle: the value of tokens does not depend on actual income or content quality generated by creators, but on the belief that their prices will rise. As Buterin pointed out, this is in stark contrast to successful platforms like Substack—which, through careful curation and support, have successfully propelled a group of high-quality but initially obscure creators into the public eye.

Solution: A Dual-Layer Architecture Separating “Execution” and “Preference Formation”

To address these issues, Buterin proposed a clear dual-layer architecture model, with the core idea of separating “execution” from “preference formation.”

Layer One: Open Prediction Market (Execution Layer)

This layer is an open prediction market where anyone can participate. Participants trade tokens of specific creators to predict which creators will qualify to join high-value creator DAOs. Those who predict correctly receive economic rewards, while others bear losses, creating a highly responsible discovery mechanism. Buterin believes this market mechanism is the best tool for building “decentralized execution authority” in a permissionless environment.

Layer Two: High-Value Creator DAO (Preference Formation Layer)

This layer consists of medium-sized DAOs (with no more than about 200 members), focused on specific fields such as long-form writing, tech commentary, etc. DAO members vote anonymously and without collusion to decide whether to accept new creators. The core of this layer is to resist manipulation and non-financialization, aiming to establish an environment driven by intrinsic motivation for creation rather than chasing financial gains.

Mechanism Linkage: Building a Value Closed-Loop

These two layers are not isolated but tightly coupled, forming a positive feedback loop:

• Value Discovery: External prediction markets serve as a “radar” for DAOs to find potential new members, with market funds flowing toward creators generally regarded as promising.
• Value Anchoring: Once a creator is accepted by the DAO, the DAO uses part of its income to buy back and burn some of that creator’s tokens. This action directly reduces token supply, theoretically increasing its value, thereby linking token price to the DAO’s actual income and collective recognition.
• Incentive Alignment: In this system, token holders are no longer pure speculators but become “predictors of DAO decisions.” Their returns depend on accurately identifying creators that will be recognized by high-quality communities, guiding market incentives toward content quality discovery.

Ultimately, the rise and fall of creators will no longer be driven by speculators but by their peers—those capable of producing and recognizing high-quality content.

Industry Perspectives: Recognition and Skepticism Coexist

Buterin’s proposal has sparked in-depth discussions within the industry. Supporters believe this model cleverly balances decentralization and curation.

• Blockchain advisor Anndy Lian pointed out that this proposal makes token economies rely on “curation rather than clicks.” If creators can enter high-trust DAOs, their tokens can be supported by real income streams.
• Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder of RedStone, believes this prediction market “creates evidence-based discovery,” incentivizing participants to find quality rather than chase traffic metrics.

However, skepticism also exists, mainly concerning governance complexity and subjectivity.

• Dogecoin founder Billy Markus expressed doubts about the concept of creator tokens itself.
• Some experts argue that DAOs often suffer from governance manipulation, voter apathy, and internal clique issues, making them potentially unsuitable as arbiters of creative quality.
• Others point out that prediction markets are most effective when outcomes can be objectively verified, and building prediction markets based on subjective tastes filtered through DAO politics is questionable in terms of effectiveness.

Market Perspective: Underlying Blockchain Performance and Ecosystem Narratives

Any innovative model’s implementation depends on the performance of underlying public blockchains and ecosystem support. Taking Ethereum and Solana, two popular chains, as examples, their market performance and recent developments reflect the industry’s volatility and activity levels.

Despite short-term market pressures, Ethereum’s infrastructure development continues steadily, such as Sony’s fund investing in ecosystem building and research into anti-censorship upgrades, providing a long-term foundation for more complex decentralized applications (like the model envisioned by Buterin).

Outlook: An Experiment in Defining Value

Vitalik Buterin’s proposal is not just a technical model but a profound reflection on “how to define and reward value in a decentralized world.” It combines the financial efficiency of prediction markets with the collective wisdom of DAOs, attempting to find a new path between open finance and high-quality curation.

While its implementation faces governance and subjectivity challenges, it undoubtedly points to a promising evolutionary direction for struggling creator tokens and the broader SocialFi space. In the future, we may see initial experiments based on this concept launching on platforms like Gate, where the market will test whether this theory can truly allow the intrinsic value of creators to be fairly priced on the blockchain.