Creating a Minimum Viable Onchain Podcast

Last year I documented the tech stack I used for creating a minimum viable podcast, with suggestions on how to create and edit an audio recording, design cover art, and make it available on platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

In this follow up post, I'm providing guidance on creating a minimum viable onchain podcast, for people interested in the intersection of the creator economy and blockchain networks.

Before going into details on how to create an onchain podcast, I will first explain what an onchain podcast is and the benefits they provide.

If I were to ask 10 people deep into crypto what "onchain podcast" means, I'd expect 10 different answers. For the purpose of this article, and to stay true to the ethos of what it means to be an MVP, the definition I am adopting is simple:

An onchain podcast is an audio or video file represented by a non-fungible token (NFT).

Expanding on this definition, an onchain podcast can be minted or collected by anyone with a web3 wallet. It could reside on any number of blockchains including Ethereum, a layer 2 network (Base, Zora, Polygon), Solana, etc. Although a user would own the NFT and associated metadata, the media itself need not necessarily be stored on a blockchain but ideally hosted on IPFS or another decentralized file hosting solution.

An onchain podcast doesn’t have to be exclusively available as an NFT. For example, GM Farcaster, the Farcaster livestream news show founded by @NounishProf and myself, qualifies as an onchain podcast since all our episodes are in NFT collections (check them out on Zora or Open Sea). However, we also publish the podcast to Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, etc.

In the web3 and crypto corners of the internet, there has been a trend of putting more and more content onchain. But why? Why would someone put content onchain when it's easier and cheaper to use proven, existing hosting solutions like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, etc.?

Putting a podcast on a blockchain offers all the buzzwordy benefits you would expect: transparency, censorship resistance, and better monetization opportunities by connecting creators directly with consumers, eliminating the need for a platform as an intermediary. Here are the three biggest benefits I've observed since starting GM Farcaster:

• Monetization Opportunities: The most obvious benefit of making your podcast an NFT is direct monetization of your content. As a creator, you can choose to offer the NFT for free or set a price. Your podcast remains accessible to all, but you might be surprised by how many friends or fans choose to buy the NFT to show their support. Venture Capitalist and frequent blogger Fred Wilson recently explained this phenomenon where people choose to buy content as NFTs by calling mints the native business model for web3.

• Community Engagement: Creating a podcast as an NFT allows creators to connect with their audience without an intermediary. This opens up numerous possibilities for creative and innovative ways to grow a community around your show. For instance, with GM Farcaster, we have been experimenting with token-gated group chats in Warpcast, allowing us to have private chats with our audience. This has been a way to continue conversations started on our podcast, let our audience contribute their perspectives, and keep them engaged. We also offer access to VIP happy hours, IRL meetups, and (eventually) merchandise discounts—none of which are possible through traditional podcasting platforms.

• Enhanced Analytics and Audience Insights: Traditional web2 podcast platforms provide some analytics, but these are often aggregated and not very detailed. For example, I can see the total number of subscribers or listeners of my podcast but not their email addresses or other podcasts they listen to. Onchain podcasts allow for transparent access to detailed data, enabling anyone—not just creators—to analyze listener behaviors and interests through their NFT interactions. Anyone can see how many people mint and collect episodes, as well as what other interests they have based on the other NFTs they hold.

With a clear definition of an onchain podcast and an understanding of its benefits, let's explore what is involved in creating one.

Creating a Minimum Viable Onchain Podcast doesn't have to be complicated. The simplest way is to record a Zoom meeting and upload the MP4 video file to a platform like Zora as a non-fungible token (NFT). This satisfies my simple definition of an onchain podcast. Now, let’s break down the process into four key steps to getting an onchain podcast up and running.

1. Get a Crypto Wallet. With traditional podcasting platforms, all you need is an email address to sign up and use their platform. With an NFT hosting platform, you'll need a crypto wallet. If you set a price for your NFTs, this is where your earnings will go anytime someone mints or collects one of your NFTs. There are many crypto wallets to choose from; the two I've been using are rainbow and coinbase wallet.

2. Create the Actual Podcast: You'll need to produce the podcast content, whether it’s audio or video. This could be as straightforward as recording a Google Meet or Zoom meeting and saving the MP4 output. For enhancements, consider adding an intro and outro and doing some light editing. For more detailed guidance, you can refer to my Minimum Viable Podcast post.

3. Upload the Podcast to an NFT platform. This is the most important step to creating an onchain podcast and luckily it's also the easiest. Using a platform like Zora is easy and what we use for our GM Farcaster episodes. You can choose any network to host your podcast on. We chose to use Base because we wanted the small fees of a Layer 2 with the builder ethos and strong community that Base brings.

4. Get the Word Out. This step is optional but if you want an audience you have to promote your podcast and tell people about it. Farcaster is a great place to share your work since the community is full of crypto natives and early adopters. There’s even a channel specifically for onchain media, making it an ideal platform for sharing your work and connecting with other onchain creators.

Congratulations! You've successfully launched your MVP onchain podcast and are now part of a small group of pioneers building a more equitable and transparent model for digital content. You're helping redefine the creator economy, directing benefits and power away from large platforms and towards creators and consumers alike.

But don't quit here. The purpose of this post was to provide just enough information to get you started.

• This post aimed to document an MVP for an onchain podcast, emphasizing the "minimum" in MVP. There are many more layers to add and iterations to pursue to improve and professionalize your podcast and make it "more" onchain. Iterate and improve on the content. Write your own smart contracts. Experiment with token-gated content. Explore platforms like Hypersub by Fabric for alternative monetization opportunities. Gradually move your content from centralized services to more decentralized options, including going fully onchain.

• If you have an existing podcast on traditional platforms, consider putting it onchain as well. You have nothing to lose and potentially much to gain. You probably already publish your podcast to multiple platforms through RSS, so just think of onchain as one more distribution channel.

• Blockchain networks are still an emerging space. I wrote this guidance for today (early 2024) but the landscape will likely evolve, and so should your strategies.

• Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. When I first ventured into this space, the immutable nature of blockchains intimidated me. I didn't want to put something onchain that I didn't want lasting forever. But the more time I spend building in this space, the more I've come to realize it's okay to release work that isn't perfect. I don't want to say our early GM Farcaster episodes were bad, but we certainly had our share of technical glitches and our content wasn't very polished. But we've continued to keep churning out episodes, building an audience, and improving as we go. I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, about creating good content:

"Do a shitty version of it every day or week and expect it to suck, but try to get feedback and iterate and over the course of years you will go from bad to good to amazing

Compounding works"