Music NFT Platforms：The Next Hotspot in the Crypto Space

01 March 10:49

Summary

1. NFTs have the potential to change the traditional music industry. The minting of Decentralized NFTs can directly bridge the gap between musicians and listeners, allowing musicians to regain control over the value of their works.
2. Royal is a music-like platform that sells song copyrights in the form of NFTs.It is conducive to democratizing music ownership, thus reforming the traditional music business model.
3. OneOf is a green NFT music platform based on the Tezos blockchain. But it is a collection NFT platform.
4. Melos is a platform not only for trading music NFTs but also for creating and publishing music NFTs.
5. Eulerbeats is also a generative music NFT project that combines music with visual art in product design.

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In 2021, the word “NFT” beat a series of other candidates such as "Crypto" and "Double-vaxxed" and was named the word of the year for 2021 by Collins Dictionary. In the past year, the term NFT appeared in fields such as art, finance, and social networking, registering an over 11,000% growth of usage rate. 2021 was already defined by NFT. In 2022, in which areas will NFT play a greater role? We predict that music NFT platforms will be one of them.

The application of NFT technology in the music industry has unique advantages. In 2020, the total global recorded music market revenue reached $21.6 billion, according to data provided by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

However, in this huge market, the income of the musician is not equal to the popularity of their songs. As the Internet is becoming more centralized, the vast majority of profits from music sales are controlled by Internet giants responsible for distributing traffic and music companies that hold copyrights, while the music creators may gain very little.

In March 2021, the famous musician 3LAU released the world's first NFT album on the Royal, an NFT music platform, and gained over $11.68 million in one day. This exemplifies how NFTs will change the traditional music industry. The minting of the decentralized NFTs can directly bridge the gap between musicians and listeners, allowing musicians to regain control over the value of their works.

At present, there are dozens of different NFT music platforms on the market, such as Audius, OneOf, Royal, Rocki, etc. On these platforms, musicians can often mint and distribute music NFTs by themselves, and fans are allowed to trade these NFTs in the secondary market. Next, we will introduce several excellent music NFT platforms in detail.

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ⅠRoyal

Launched by Justin Blau and a famous American DJ in May last year, Royal is a music-like platform that sells song copyrights in the form of NFTs. The platform announced that it had completed a $55 million Series A financing in November 2021. Many well-known institutions and top musicians contributed to the financing. Then, the growth on the platform increased daily with the number of registrations growing rapidly. Royal is in the limelight and has a bright future. So how exactly does it work?

On Royal, musicians are encouraged to mint their music into NFTs and sell them on the platform, and fans can use tokens to buy these streaming royalties and bundled benefits directly from the musicians. These NFTs can also bundle fan experiences, special tracks, and digital art as sales. At the same time, musicians can decide on the distribution percentage of their works’ royalties to their fans.

As these musical works are gaining in popularity, musicians can receive a considerable amount of royalties, and fans can also earn a certain percentage of royalties for investing in these musical works. The more fans the music work has, the greater the benefits for the fans themselves. This will not only encourage more fans to participate but also be conducive to democratizing music ownership, thus reforming the traditional music business model.

Ⅱ One-of

OneOf is a green NFT music platform based on the Tezos blockchain. Unlike Royal, it is a collection NFT platform. On OneOf, users can listen to songs for free without purchasing NFT. Even if they purchase NFT songs, they do not obtain the copyright of the song works, but they can benefit if the NFT works grow in value. Therefore, users who buy music NFTs on the OneOf platform mainly focus on its collection value.

The OneOf platform offers a variety of gameplay experiences to users, including blind boxes, puzzle solving, card collection, and exchange. To encourage musicians to issue NFTs on OneOf, the platform supports musicians in minting NFT works for free to achieve zero-cost green distribution. Musicians can choose from ONEOF, DIAMOND, PLATINUM, GOLD, and GREEN to release NFTs. These five levels grant different rights and interests to users.

OneOf raised $63 million in its latest round of funding. Many environmental activists and well-known investors were involved. The platform has also established friendly partnerships with music brands such as the Grammy Awards, MusiCares, iHeartRadio, and has joined hands with Warner Music to promote NFT music. Oana Ruxandra, executive vice president of Warner Music Group, also said the partnership with OneOf "gives our artists an edge in creating more authentic one-on-one relationships with fans and winning in the new Web 3.0 economy."

Ⅲ Melos Studio

Dissimilar to the usual music platforms, Melos is a platform not only for trading music NFTs but also for creating and publishing music NFTs. Melos embraces a vision that enables all music lovers to participate in music creation and get corresponding rewards through NFT technology. In addition to supporting users with the minting, selling, and buying music NFTs, the platform also comes with a powerful music production and editing tool called Metis AI. With it, even ordinary people who don’t have much prior experience in arranging can easily compose music.
Even if users have purchased the NFT music clip on Melos, the NFT owner can further modify the music on the platform, but the revisions will be written into the blockchain to form the DNATree of the music content. Subsequent editors will become contributors to this music NFT. Therefore, each contributor can receive the corresponding profits in the following trading of the music NFT.

Ⅳ Eulerbeats

Named after the famous mathematician Leonhard Eulerin the 18th century, Eulerbeats is also a generative music NFT project. The project migrated to the Ethereum sidechain Polygon on November 13 last year. Treating music as "digital art based on NFTs", this project combines music with visual art in product design. The algorithm, based on the metadata (called Seed) generated by the smart contract on the chain, will automatically generate the corresponding electronic music. Meanwhile, Eulerbeats will draw a unique cover for each music NFT based on the mathematical algorithm.

Music NFTs on Eulerbeats are, in terms of the economic model, divided into discs and replica discs. The former type is scarce in number and has a high price. And its owner also has the right to record the replica disc and can earn income by selling it. Eulerbeats earned about $1.15 million in royalties in the first week after the project began in February last year, according to the report.

Conclusion

Now Web 3.0 is coming. However, the emergence of music NFT platforms reminds us of the innocent era when the Internet was not yet developed and business logic did not control everything. At that time, talented musicians composed music for love without being oppressed by monopolized platforms; countless fans paid for their beliefs and rejoiced at the collection of vinyl records...

NFT will endow the music industry with the power to regain control of its own price. We sincerely look forward to this bright future.

Author: Gate.io Researcher:Ashley. H，Translator: Cedar.W
This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
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