Currency exchange is too high of a barrier for supporters.
A large portion of Patreon is artists asking for support for content they offer for free, with only token benefits for the supporters. Making the act of giving money as simple and convenient as possible is key in that scenario. Using a crypto-currency is pretty much the opposite.
No, I mean one crypto-currency specifically designed for what Patreon does.
Instead of paying Patreon with a credit card, you'd pay to buy this crypto currency. And then distribute it micropayment-style to all kinds of things.
Isn't anyone doing that? IMHO the hardest part is the Coinbase thing - collecting credit cards and dealing with chargebacks etc. in a compliant way in many countries.
The other stuff is easy - such as localization in many languages.
You know who does this also? Kickstarter. They just launched in Japan!
But aren't you then stuck with either one platform which does that, offering you no advantage over what Patreon offers today, or loosing a lot of the miscellaneous Patreon features for keeping Patreons and creators in touch in exchange for gaining censorship resistance?
It's certainly doable, but I think it would be a hard sell compared to Patreon or any regular centralized Patreon alternative.
That'd still end up dealing with currency conversions. People still buy food and pay rent in their local currencies.
If you're talking about something that's only usable on Patreon, then why a crypto-currency? It could much easier just be like gems in a clicker game. But then, they'd get some bad press for basically making people use casino chips.
A large portion of Patreon is artists asking for support for content they offer for free, with only token benefits for the supporters. Making the act of giving money as simple and convenient as possible is key in that scenario. Using a crypto-currency is pretty much the opposite.