Vitalik Buterin has identified the failure of creator tokens as stemming from an inability to effectively filter high-quality content, rather than a lack of incentives. He highlighted Substack's success as a result of strong curation and subjective selection. To prevent speculative cycles, Buterin suggests using non-tokenized, highly selective small creator DAOs as quality gatekeepers. He proposes transforming creator tokens into prediction tools for acceptance by quality DAOs, with value anchored through a buyback and burn mechanism.