Web3 can solve gatekeepers, deplatforming for online creators: Interview with new Lukso COO
Web3 can give more power to online creators, enabling them to experiment without the fear of deplatforming, says new Lukso COO.
Creators have long been on the mercy of centalized online platforms, like Google, Meta and Spotify. These platforms can change the rules however they see fit, impacting a creator’s reach, and earnings. Lukso (LYX) is one of the companies that hopes to use Web3 to give more power to creators.
The company has recently announced appointing Jan-Oliver Sell as the new Chief Operating Officer. Sell, the former Managing Director at Coinbase Germany, shared his insights on the potentials of Web3 for creators with crypto.news.
crypto.news: AI has enabled many more people to become creators. However, there are many creators who are concerned with the rise of AI and what it means for them. How does AI fit in Lukso’s vision of empowering creators?Jan-Oliver Sell: AI is reshaping creativity, but it also raises questions about authorship, attribution, and accountability. The focus with LUKSO is on giving AI systems a verifiable presence on-chain—through Universal Profiles.
A Universal Profile isn’t just for humans; it can also serve as a digital identity for AI agents. This allows AI to act on-chain transparently—sign transactions, publish content, hold assets, and interact with other profiles—all under a persistent, verifiable identity. The Universal Profile can link to off-chain training data sources, reference models it was trained on, and log actions for accountability.
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Importantly, Universal Profiles are programmable and modular. Multiple people—such as developers, curators, or safety auditors—can be granted permission to manage the AI’s profile through LUKSO’s LSP6 key manager standard. This enables safe, collaborative oversight of AI agents. The profile can even build a following, earn a reputation, and evolve socially—just like a human creator.
CN: How does Lukso tackle intellectual property rights, and how does that fit into the existing IP laws?
JS: LUKSO is not a fixed system with a set of functionality, but like Ethereum a sandbox for unlimited ways to solve things. Like Intellectual property, which can be more transparently managed through technology. Instead of replacing legal systems, the focus is on enhancing them—allowing creators to attach licenses, metadata, and provenance directly to digital assets. This provides a clearer, tamper-proof trail of ownership and rights, helping bridge traditional IP law with the evolving digital landscape.
CN: Lukso promotes itself as the blockchain for the creator economy. Can you outline the problems with centralized platforms like Instagram or Spotify for creators?
JS: Centralized platforms are closed systems. They control who sees what, how creators earn, and what features are allowed. Creators are at the mercy of shifting algorithms, opaque policies, and data silos they don’t own or control.
With LUKSO’s LSP smart contract standards, especially Universal Profiles, the focus is on shifting that power dynamic. Universal Profiles are fully on-chain, censorship-resistant, and publicly accessible. This means creators own their identity and content, and anyone can read or interact with that data—fans, apps, platforms, or even new protocols. No one can shut it down or shadow-ban a profile. Once published, it’s part of a shared, permissionless space.
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This open foundation enables entirely new types of relationships between creators, communities, and developers. Fans can build tools on top of creators’ profiles. Artists can experiment freely without fear of deplatforming. And new protocols can emerge that treat creators as sovereign participants, not just content suppliers. It’s a better environment for innovation, freedom, and sustainable connection.
CN: What are the advantages of Web3 platforms compared to centralized platforms? What are some challenges that Web3 is facing?Â
JS: Web3 introduces transparency, ownership, and user agency. It allows creators to monetize directly, own their audience, and operate without platform gatekeepers. However, mainstream adoption is held back by complexity—unfamiliar tools, confusing interfaces, and security concerns. That’s why I tackled it by rethinking user accounts from the ground up with Universal Profiles—bringing smart, recoverable, and user-friendly blockchain identities to the Web3 experience.What holds web3 back is not the tools and dApps, but the foundations, the pure private key account system, and the lack of a proper standardised smart contract-based account system. This is now solved and available for all web3 through the LUKSO Standards Proposals (LSPs).
CN: Despite the advantages of decentralization, we have seen centralized entities consistently pop up even in the blockchain space. For instance, CEXs and memecoin launchpads, popular for their accessibility. Can decentralized platforms ever close the accessibility gap?Â
JS: Decentralized systems often face hurdles in scalability, speed, and user experience. These limitations have led to the rise of centralized intermediaries even within Web3—because they offer the ease and speed people are used to. But with the right standards, that gap doesn’t just close—it becomes an opportunity to leap ahead.
We rebuild the user experience layer using Universal Profiles and new standards that make blockchain accounts smart, recoverable, and extensible. This transforms the user interface of Web3 into something more intuitive and powerful than Web2.
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What truly sets it apart is composability. In Web2, apps and platforms are siloed—you can’t take Instagram and plug it into Spotify. In LUKSO’s ecosystem, you can embed protocols directly into profiles. A single mini-app can serve as a token launchpad, event ticketing system, or fan token claim tool. When embedded into a Universal Profile within UniversalEverything.io, the profile itself becomes the app: an artist’s profile becomes their ticket store, a project’s profile becomes their launchpad. This level of modularity and cross-functionality doesn’t exist in Web2.
With proper standards, decentralization can not only match the convenience of centralized platforms—it can surpass it by offering greater flexibility, ownership, and creative potential.
CN: What are the key areas that Lukso is focusing on to help creators?Â
JS: The focus with LUKSO is on building the digital infrastructure creators need to thrive—where identity, ownership, and creativity are deeply integrated into the blockchain itself.
Key areas include:
Universal Profiles: Smart, on-chain accounts that serve as a creator’s digital identity. They hold assets, reputation, and permissions—allowing creators to build trust, history, and interaction across any platform.
Token standards (LSP7 for fungible, LSP8 for NFTs): These standards go beyond legacy formats like ERC20 or ERC721, enabling automation, real-time reactions, and seamless integration with profiles and apps.
UniversalEverything.io: An open, composable frontend where creators and developers can explore the ecosystem, build mini-apps, and create new experiences for their fanbases. It’s like a living dashboard for the decentralized web—where a profile is not just a presence, but a programmable space.
Together, these components form a foundation where creators aren’t locked into platforms—they own their identity, data, and audience, and they can grow their ecosystem on their own terms.
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2025-05-15 21:32:45
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