Happy Friday. The Masters hosted Dude Perfect at Augusta National for one of their iconic All Sports Golf Battle videos this week. With the YouTuber’s 57 million+ audience, young people learned more about the legacy course in 10 minutes than they did all last year.

–Hannah Doyle

Logan Paul Opens a Crypto Marketplace

The YouTuber and recent Wrestlemania fighter’s latest business venture is Liquid Marketplace, a platform for fractional ownership of collectables like CryptoPunks and high value trading cards. 

In a tweet announcing the company, Logan explained that physical items sold on their marketplace have to be delivered to their vault. Once in Liquid Marketplace’s possession, the item can then be sold on their platform via tokens that account for 10 cents’ worth of the item’s value.

The marketplace turns NFTs as well as physical items into tokens, which they then sell in a limited quantity. The tokens are ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and can be transferred outside of the marketplace although they recommend users avoid doing so for safety reasons.

Liquid Marketplace is putting an emphasis on safe trading given Paul’s experience with counterfeit buys—once paying $3.5 million for fake Pokémon cards. He’s no stranger to the collectables space having published unboxing videos of Pokemon cards that reach upwards of 8 million views. He's also an avid investor in NFTs, for one of which he earned over $500,000 in a single sale. 

The marketplace raised $8 million at launch with a number of advisors, including Jeremy Padawar, the former co-president of Wicked Cool Toys, the company that received the Pokémon toy license outside of Asia. Another advisor is Steve Aoki, who’s recently been active in the NFT space and performing in the metaverse.

Our Take

We’ve seen creators launch merch, food brands, and VC funds—but a crypto-based platform is a whole new territory. Its fractional ownership functionality points to the future of how crypto will impact the creator economy and we expect to see big platforms like YouTube and TikTok let creators fractionalize ownership of their content and earnings.

Fashion Creator WeWoreWhat Launches a Credit Card

Danielle Bernstein, the creator behind WeWoreWhat, a fashion instagram with 2.8 million followers, partnered with branded credit card company Imprint to launch a Rewards Visa card this week.

It claims to be the first creator rewards card and offers 10% cashback benefits for purchases at Bernstein’s fashion brand, WeWoreWhat, as well as some of her favorite NYC brands, restaurants, and shops such as Jack's Wife Freda, Wellbel, and Life House Hotels.

How’d she get here?

• Bernstein started WeWoreWhat in 2010 as a style blog during her sophomore year of college and grew a steady following on Instagram.

• By 2017 she had 1.3 million followers and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list that same year. 

• Soon after, she wrote a book, launched a namesake fashion brand, and formed a philanthropy organization. 

She’s come under criticism in recent years, facing multiple accusations of copyright infringement, which has cast a shadow of skepticism over the credit card launch.

In a video, Bernstein claims the card won’t impact a cardholder’s credit score as customers link the card to their bank account as they do in the Venmo app. The card also won’t charge fees or APR. 

Our Take

Bernstein has built a devoted following and a Visa card rewards fans for emulating the lifestyle that she portrays. Though given her past, the offering tests whether she’s built enough trust with her fans over her decade+ of creating, or if the scandals outweigh the chance for the card to be successful.

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Markiplier Releases an Interactive Video Series

Earlier this week In Space with Markiplier: Part 1 dropped as an interactive YouTube Original with at least eight ending options for fans to choose from. 

In the first 24 hours, it gained 3.2 million views. And the linked videos within the movie totaled 25 million views, which means the average viewer of the show watched nearly eight additional videos after watching the first one. 

Markiplier is one of YouTube’s top gaming creators, with 32.5 million subscribers and over 17 billion video views. This venture aligns with his brand, having made a previous interactive video, A Heist With Markiplier, and year-long ephemeral series Unus Annus.

Our Take

The future of content is interactive, where viewers control the story. Look no further than Netflix, which is leaning heavily into interactive content—even in rom coms. While it takes more infrastructure to pull off, we expect to see YouTube and other social platforms invest more in the capabilities to put their viewers in the driver's seat.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Emma Chamberlain partners with CAVA.

• Yes Theory releases a video documenting their experience at the Ukraine border.

• Podcaster and athlete Rick Roll signs with CAA.

• This creator economy event will include Daniel Pink, Ann Handley, Brian Clark, and Joe Pulizzi all in one place.*

• Noah Beck is set to star in and produce the film adaptation of The QB Badboy and Me.

• Education platform Teachable hosts a creator competition to win $100,000.

*This is sponsored advertising content.