Paragraph

Discover great content, all across web3, in your social graph & beyond.

Introducing new ways to discover

We're excited to announce an integration between Paragraph & Coinvise.

Use Coinvise to create token-powered Paragraph newsletters

We're thrilled to announce our pre-seed fundraise.

Paragraph raises $1.7m

A new way to register and login to Paragraph.

Partnering with Unstoppable Domains

New features: theming, welcome emails, a new editor & more

Whenever an article or blogpost is published, readers primarily talk about it on social media. Hot takes get shared on Twitter, in-depth discussion occurs on Hacker News, and video responses get posted on YouTube and TikTok.

Rarely does all discussion occur *on the article itself*. It’s much easier for readers to converse using tools they’re already using, with an audience they already engage with regularly.

Because of this decentralized nature of discussion, it’s challenging for authors to keep track of (and respond to!) all engagement they’re receiving. It’s also difficult for readers to dive deeper and get a holistic overview of all discussion on a piece of content. Lastly, the reputation and status you accrue on a single platform is entirely tied to that platform - you can’t export your Twitter followers or tweets and immediately make use of them on Facebook, for example.

Developers of web2 writing platforms could try to pull in all discussion from social media and display it on the article itself, but social media companies offer no (or limited) APIs to grant access to this functionality. Twitter, for example, limits the number of tweets you can query per month, and charge an exorbitant amount for access. These platforms aren’t incentivized to extend these limits or provide ways to make their audience portable, since they’d naturally prefer if all discussion happens *on their own* platform within the constraints of *their own* walled garden.

Web3 improves upon this greatly via permissionless, global access to data. No longer does data need to be silo’d and exposed via API - now, data can be used permissionlessly via sufficiently decentralized protocols. No longer is there a risk of API access getting limited or shut off - this is impossible at a protocol-level.

At Paragraph, this type of permissionless data access & portability is why we’re so excited about **[sufficiently decentralized social networks](https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decentralization-for-social-networks)**. We believe your content & your audience should be owned by you; and developers should always be able to build on top of it. No one should be able to change this - these rules should be enforced via code.

That’s why we’re excited to announce the very first integration with one such protocol - **[Farcaster](https://www.farcaster.xyz/).**

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 ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f90a62a6fc34027a493b68e9c830965f)

Starting today, whenever a Paragraph post URL is shared on Farcaster, the comments & associated discussion are permissionlessly displayed on the post itself. This allows authors and readers to get a holistic view of all discussion, giving writers a chance to respond and readers a chance to dive deeper.

 ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/78819b21b486821a9abfe70b3887a30d)

We believe web3 social networks like Farcaster and Lens will unlock new ways to create, consume, curate & distribute content, and we’re excited to continue experimenting and building on top of these protocols.

Interested in your own Paragraph newsletter? [Connect your wallet](https://paragraph.xyz/register) and get started in seconds. (We’re also pretty active on [Discord](https://paragraph.xyz/discord)).

Want to join Farcaster? Send [Dan](https://twitter.com/dwr) a DM on Twitter.

Our First Farcaster Integration

Over the past two months we’ve been busy at [Paragraph](https://paragraph.xyz), and today we’re excited to announce a handful of new features we’ve been working on.

## Token-gated newsletters

You can now create **token-gated newsletters** on Paragraph.

You can gate posts behind ERC20 or ERC721 tokens on Ethereum or Polygon networks. When your readers subscribe to your token-gated newsletter, they’re prompted to connect their wallet and email. After that, every time you publish a new newsletter we only deliver it to your recipients if they’re still holding your tokens.

Don’t have an existing token? No problem - you can mint an NFT on Paragraph for **0 gas fees,** on the Polygon network. You can also specify the quantity & price, allowing you to create different tiered memberships (possibly with different benefits associated to each).

### Why NFTs?

We’re still at the early stages of experimenting with tokens & writing, but we believe NFT-based memberships provide a handful of benefits for creators & communities alike:

**NFTs are composable, portable, open & permissionless.**

NFTs can be used across the entire crypto ecosystem, and new experiences can be built atop them without requiring centralized APIs or intermediaries.

Airdrop your earliest supporters, create token-gated Discord channels to foster closer discussion, sell physical goods in token-gated ecommerce, or bundle newsletters together by providing free access to a shared token-based readership. This open ecosystem is in contrast to closed web2 platforms: without open APIs, it’s impossible to answer simple questions like “is this email on my subscriber list?”

We believe newsletters & written content will be a valuable way of providing even more utility to NFTs across web3.

**Readers can get new forms of ownership, upside, and engagement with a writer or community.**

Paid subscriptions grant access, but not much more than that. NFTs, on the other hand, grant ownership - they unlock the ability to crowdsource ideas, vote on the next topic to cover, or decide how to direct treasury funds. Create *with* your audience, instead of just *for* them.

Readers can also be given upside in your publication: in the future, we’ll add support for distributing royalties to token holders. Your readers already help you grow by sharing newsletters with their friends - why not financially reward them, further incentivizing growth?

##  ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/e7cca9f1263077580136227dc25abf57)Sub-newsletters

Paragraph now lets you divide your newsletter into **multiple sub-newsletters** (what we call ‘communities’). You can have one for weekly rollups, one for ecosystem news, one for inter-DAO updates, etc. Posts can be published under certain communities, keeping them organized in your publication and sending them only to users that subscribed to a given community.

Best of all - each sub-newsletter one can be token-gated individually!

## Multiple accounts per newsletter

Writing in a collective (rather than alone) has several benefits: you experience less burnout, you distribute the load, and you can feed off each others creativity. Now, Paragraph lets you add other writers to your publication, enabling you to collaborate together on a single newsletter.

 ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f129afab200faf24695a5d42a9c2c4a0)

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That’s all for now. Any feedback or feature requests, just let us know by replying to this email or joining our [Discord](https://paragraph.xyz/discord)!

June feature roundup: token-gated newsletters, multiple accounts, & sub-newsletters

Today, we have some exciting news to share regarding the evolution of our company.

We’re rebranding, and changing our name from **Papyrus** to **Paragraph**. This new brand better reflects our long-term vision and focus - helping creators publish content, reach their audience, build closer communities, and get paid directly from their users.

 ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/5005182c0ae4fdbd2386de5979a25e6a)

## Why ‘Paragraph’?

Beyond the obvious reference to writing, *graphs* are used in mathematics and computer science to represent relationships. Relationships play a large role in the creator economy - musicians have listeners, streamers have viewers, and writers have readers (or newsletter subscribers).

Web3 is fundamentally changing how creators own, manage, and monetize these relationships. As we outlined in a [recent post](https://paragraph.xyz/@blog/web3-tools-for-future-of-creator-economy), we believe this direction is the future, so we intend on continuing to build novel ways of connecting creators with their audience. 

## What This Means for Our Users

All links - including all blogs and posts - will permanently (HTTP 308) redirect from https://papyrus.so to https://paragraph.xyz starting from today.

All newsletters were previously sent by *your-newsletter@papyrus.so.* Now, they’ll be sent by *your-newsletter@your-newsletter.paragraph.xyz.*

If you have a custom domain, there should be no changes for how you or your readers continue accessing your blog.

If you have any questions, we’re happy to help - just reach out on [Discord](discord.gg/yMCfGRuENg) or via email (hello@paragraph.xyz).

## The Path Ahead for Paragraph

This rebranding represents the first of many steps towards [our vision](https://paragraph.xyz/@blog/web3-tools-for-future-of-creator-economy) of the future of the creator economy. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg - we have big plans to continue changing how publishers grow and get paid, and how closer communities get built. Token-gated access, recurring crypto payments, wallet-to-wallet newsletters, and more ways to engage with readers & writers are just a few upcoming product features on the roadmap.

We also have some exciting news to share in the next few weeks that will help accelerate our goals - stay tuned!

As always, we’re incredibly grateful for your never-ending support, and we’re thrilled to have you along on our journey.

Papyrus is now Paragraph

Welcome to the Paragraph blog!

We’ll post updates about the platform, deep-dives on the interesting tech we use, or general thoughts about the writing ecosystem as a whole on here.

You can also find us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/papyrus_xyz) or on our [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/ZRqz7V5vdq).

Be sure to hit Subscribe above to never miss a post.

About Paragraph

At [Papyrus](https://papyrus.so), we’ve been building tools to support creators since our inception.

We’ve built a platform that lets creators write content, create paid newsletters, and build a community. We’ve helped thousands of writers connect with tens of thousands of readers since we’ve launched.

Over the years, advances in technology have unlocked new methods of producing and monetizing digital content - from crowdfunding companies like Patreon to digital subscription services like Spotify, there’s been a consistent stream of disruptive technology that enables new forms of monetization and growth for  creators.

Today, we at Papyrus believe that **web3 and NFTs** will continue the trend of disruption, fundamentally changing how creators can provide utility, foster relationships, and build wealth *alongside* their audience.

We’re at the start of a broad shift from the creator economy to the **ownership economy** - creators will no longer simply produce content and hand it off to a platform to monetize as they see fit; instead, the creator and their audience will have ownership and stake in these creations, as well as ownership in the user-run platforms where these creations exist.

We believe Papyrus will help play a key role in empowering both creators and their readers during this transition.

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 ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ef60f6e989008b24b94039d2eb2cee95)

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# **How will web3 help writers & content creators?**

Historically, creators have gone through one or more of the following steps when producing content:

* **Funding:** Creator self-funds their creation by working other jobs, or (very rarely) getting an advance from a publishing company.
* **Content creation:** Creator produces something of value - a long-form article, a piece of investigative journalism, a comic book, an interview.
* **Monetization:** Creator tries to get paid for their creation - either by selling it directly, placing ads on their website, paid subscriptions, or relying on donations.
* **Growth:** Creator relies on traditional methods for growth (tweeting about it, posting on Reddit, …)

Web3 introduces mechanics that are fundamentally changing how this process works. Digital scarcity via NFTs, utility via social tokens, community ownership via DAOs, and economic growth incentives via royalties are just a handful of example of the technological shift.

Let’s explore how web3 could influence these steps, and where we believe the future of content creation lies.

## Funding

Creator’s have historically self-funded their creations. They work a 9-5 job, then come home and work on their true passions. Unless the creator has a large amount of savings or outside funding, it’s challenging for them to take the plunge and work on content creation full-time. (In rare circumstances, funds or publishing companies do provide up-front financing to the creator, but this is an exception and not the norm).

In addition, certain types of long-form pieces of content - like a comic book - can require many expenses, including artists, editors, graphic designers, and marketers, further limiting the number of creators that go all-in.

We want to change this by providing two different methods of receiving funding (*even before content is produced*): crowdfunding via **social tokens**, and equitably distributing funding via a **DAO.**

### Social tokens

Creators can mint and sell social tokens, which provide utility (such as access to their token-gated content, similar to a paid subscription), in addition to other special features (including royal incentives).

For example, a new creator on Papyrus could choose to mint 3 different tiers of tokens…

|    | Access token | Patron token | Super-fan token |
|----|----|----|----|
| Quantity | ∞ | 100/100 | 5/5 |
| Cost (ETH) | 0.05 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Royalty incentives | - | 0.1% | 1% |
| Other benefits | N/A - just access to all token-gated posts | Access to token-gated Discord | Signed, limited-edition physical merch |

Due to the fixed number of Patron and Super-fan tokens (and the possibility of return on investment), there’s incentive for supporters & speculators alike to buy these tokens early on, before content is even produced.

### Community owned & operated DAO

A percentage of all transaction profits on the platform could be directed to a community-owned treasury. All Papyrus token-holders could then periodically vote on which creators should receive funding. The more tokens you own, the more ownership you have, and thus the more say you’ll get over the direction of the  platform.

This is in contrast to monolithic companies themselves deciding who to fund, which has historically [encountered controversy](https://www.vox.com/recode/22338802/substack-pro-newsletter-controversy-jude-doyle) and has favored large creators that *already had* a massive audience, leading to unequal wealth distribution: the top 10 creators on Substack are earning more than $20m per year, but the vast majority of other creators are earning magnitudes less. DAOs could change this by more equitably distributing funding based on community ownership & governance.

## Content Creation & Monetization

Existing forms of monetization have problems - ads incentivize clickbait rather than high-quality content, and require large amounts of traffic. Paid subscriptions are challenging to grow without pre-existing audiences - the vast majority of subscribers [come from tweets](https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/09/what-i-learned-from-a-year-on-substack/), and if you don’t have a large Twitter following you’re at a disadvantage.

We want to supplement paid subscriptions with two new forms of monetization - **token-gated content** and **selling published content as NFTs** (which introduces an aspect of digital scarcity)**.**

### NFTs minted from written content

The signed, first-edition copy of The Hobbit sold for [over $200,000](https://news.artnet.com/market/first-edition-copy-hobbit-sells-210500-304991). I could go to the library and borrow a copy of The Hobbit for free - and it has the exact same story - so why is so much value placed on this one copy?

The answer is scarcity and status - there’s only one copy of the first-edition of The Hobbit, there will only ever be one, and it will only ever be owned by one person (or entity). Sure, I could photocopy every page of that first-edition, but I still wouldn’t own the first edition. Collectors and super-fans place very high value on scarce things they’re passionate about, or that can give them some kind of status.

NFTs introduce digital scarcity. When creators produce content, they can mint a fixed number of NFTs from this content. This can be sold to super-fans, providing a new stream of revenue to the content creator.

These NFTs can also be traded on third-party open marketplaces, with royalties continuously given back to the original creator, meaning this revenue stream is recurring and in addition to their token sales or paid subscriptions. This type of open-market trading also opens up a new type of audience that was previously inaccessible to the creator - speculators.

### Token-gated content

Creators will have the option of token-gating their posts, similar to how a creator paywalls their post today. Readers can purchase tokens that grant access to these posts.

Note that these tokens **work beyond Papyrus** since they’re based on Ethereum. You can use any other web3 platform, today or in the future, to continue providing new features and functionality to these token-holders. For example - you could create a token-gated Discord that’s only accessible to your token holders, fostering an even closer community with the most loyal of your audience.

## Growth

We believe that a creator’s audience should profit by helping the creator grow. In other words - wealth should be built with the creator and their audience hand-in-hand, rather than just the creator alone.

We do so by providing **economic incentives** for the reader to grow the creator.

### Incentivized growth

Since tokens can provide royalties, and a larger audience means larger royalties, token-holders are **economically incentivized** to help grow the creator. They have ownership and a financial stake in the success of the creator!

# What’s next for Papyrus?

Everything described above is just a small glimpse into where we believe the future is heading, and we couldn’t be more excited to help pave the way. So, over the next few months, we’ll be adding a layer of functionality on top of Papyrus that allows creators to connect their wallets and opt-in to crypto functionality.

The eventual goal is to decentralize as much as possible, but we’re starting with an approach that allows us to move quickly while enabling early adopters to take advantage of crypto features on Papyrus.

# Interested in getting in touch?

If any of this sounds interesting to you, we’d love to hear from you - regardless if you’re an engineer looking to join our team, or a content creator looking to onboard. You can find us at hello@papyrus.so, on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/papyrus_xyz), or on our [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/ZRqz7V5vdq) (no token needed to access 😉).