Thirteen NFT Music Platform Reviews: Why Are Leading Funds and Mainstream Markets Choosing to Bet on Music NFTs?
Original Author: Mu Mu & A Little Bit
Original Title: "Web 3.0 Learning Notes Issue 2: The Most Comprehensive NFT Music Platform Review"
Having seen enough of PFP and other image NFTs, as well as games on the brink of collapse, why not learn something fresh?
If you have been continuously following top-tier funds and mainstream markets, you will find that many music NFT platforms have recently emerged, and more and more of them are gaining millions of views. Why are top-tier funds and mainstream markets choosing to bet on music NFTs? A "little bit" analysis from the Web 3.0 learning team:
1. Market Scale Issue
According to Artmarket's 22nd annual report by Artprice, the total transaction volume of the global art market in 2019 was 13.3 billion USD (sorry, I really don't have the latest data, but there hasn't been much noticeable change in the past two years); while today, the sales of NFTs on the blockchain can reach several hundred million USD per week.
According to Newzoo's "2020 Global Games Market Report": In 2020, the global games market reached a market size of 174.9 billion USD;
According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the "2020 Global Music Report" shows that the total revenue of the global recorded music market (just the recorded music market) was 21.6 billion USD. As the art market and gaming market have experienced explosive growth on the blockchain, it is inevitable that "NFT" and "Web 3.0" will also ignite the music industry.
2. The Music Industry May Be More Suitable for NFTs Than Many Other Industries
The two biggest dividends in today's blockchain market are technological dividends and capital dividends; what is lacking is high-quality content production and creativity, as well as a broader traffic market.
The monopolized music industry faces an absurd scenario under the "playback economy": a huge gap has existed between the wealthy record companies and the disgruntled musicians since the late 19th century. This century-old dilemma has not been resolved from sheet music to vinyl records to the Internet Web 2.0.
Record companies control copyrights, while internet companies control traffic distribution; even top musicians do not have pricing power over their own music; and as music has become a mass consumer product and copyright business, the forced "free" music has lost its scarcity.
Top musicians want "traffic that truly belongs to them," regaining control over their fans, and the "Fan-Power" model naturally aligns with blockchain technology and NFTs, which is why top musicians are rushing to seize opportunities.
Mid to long-tail musicians also need more "value discovery platforms" rather than centralized choices. When Spotify pays only 3 cents per stream, and it takes 650,000 streams to earn 15 USD; when the Web 2.0 world requires an 8-month wait just to produce vinyl records, Web 3.0 and NFTs naturally become the best "self-rescue solution" for new musicians.
3. Trends
Yes, it’s about trends. Embrace the trend dividends, don’t resist.
Be first, be smarter.
Thirteen NFT Music Platform Reviews
But what is the difference between listening to music on NFT music platforms and on NetEase Cloud? Welcome to the second issue of the Web 3.0 Learning Notes series: "NFT Music Platform Review."
Currently, there are over 50 different music NFT platforms on the market, almost all of which were launched in 2021, with more than 30 launched in just the past two months. We have selected thirteen major platforms for an experience review, enjoy ~
1. OneOf
Website Visual: Pure black minimalist style
Introduction: A green NFT music platform based on the Tezos blockchain, where works can be sold at five levels: ONEOF, DIAMOND, PLATINUM, GOLD, and GREEN, each with different rights.
Funding: Completed a 63 million USD seed round, with investors including environmental activist Bill Tai, Suna Said from Nima Capital, Sangha Capital, tech investor Jack Herrick, and the Tezos Foundation.
Musician Onboarding: Supports various music genres, with current artists including Doja Cat, John Legend, Alesso, and The Kid LAROI.
Usability Rating: 5 stars
Zero-cost issuance: Artists issuing NFTs on its platform can experience free minting, allowing for low-priced or free NFTs. Fans can trade their NFTs on the platform's secondary market, and purchases can be made using over 135 fiat currencies via credit or debit cards, as well as cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
Eco-friendly: The energy used to mint NFTs on its platform via the Tezos blockchain is "200 million times less than that of other networks like Ethereum."
Recommendation Rating: 5 stars
2. Royal
Website Visual Style: Black and blue minimalist style, in testing phase
Introduction: Royal is a music platform similar to NFTs, launched this year by renowned American DJ and producer Justin "3LAU" Blau, helping artists create and sell NFTs while fans can earn royalties by investing in artists' works.
Funding: Completed a 16 million USD seed round in August 2021, with Paradigm and Founders Fund each investing 7 million USD. Both firms' general partners Fred Ehrsam and Keith Rabois joined the Royal board. Royal co-founder JD Ross invested 1 million USD through his venture capital firm Atomic, with the remaining 1 million USD contributed by several angel investors.
In November, completed a new round of funding of 55 million USD, with participation from a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, The Chainsmokers, Nas, Logic & Kygo, among others.
Musician Onboarding: 3LAU released the world's first NFT music album in March, earning over 11.68 million USD within 24 hours.
Usability Rating: 5 stars
Users can purchase shares of songs and earn royalties from the music they invest in. Artists decide how much of the royalties to reserve for fans and how many "official versions" of a song to mint. For example, if a song has 100 "official versions," supporters can receive 0.5% of the song's royalties.
Recommendation Rating: 5 stars
3. Rocki
Website Visual: Black and red, in testing phase
Introduction: ROCKI is a music streaming service and digital payment ecosystem, incentivized by the ROCKS token.
Musician Onboarding: Currently, over 800 music NFTs have been issued and traded.
Usability Rating: 4 stars
ROCKI has launched two unique music NFTs: an ERC721 royalty income NFT and an ERC1155 listening rights music NFT. It also features sections like "Top Music Charts" and "New Releases" that cater to user habits.
For music listeners, they can create playlists, leave comments and feedback, and host social activities on the platform to earn platform rewards in ROCKS, which can be used to listen to paid music on the platform. Creators can use ROCKS tokens to download specific songs, learn skills, generate NFTs, etc.
Recommendation Rating: 3 stars
4. Audius
Website Visual Style: Trendy
Introduction: Audius is a decentralized music sharing and streaming protocol, with the platform token AUDIO.
Funding: Announced in July 2021 that it secured 3.1 million USD in strategic financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures.
In September, it announced the completion of 5 million USD in funding, with investors including Katy Perry, The Chainsmokers, Nas, Jason Derulo, Pusha T, Mark Gillespie, as well as former Sony Music CEO Martin Bandier, K5 Global CEO Michael Kives, and SESAC CEO John Josephson.
Musician Onboarding: Audius currently has 6 million monthly active users, over 100,000 tracks, and more than 1 million playback contents. It has partnered with top artists like deadmau5, 3LAU, and RAC.
Usability Rating: 3 stars
The entry threshold is high; participating musicians and users must hold at least 100 Audio tokens to have a Silver Tier account and qualify for the Collectibles feature.
Music creators can issue music NFTs to earn revenue, and different distribution channels are set up to help creators profit through streaming, individual track purchases, artist memberships, and record collectibles. Audius provides 90% of the income from listening to original music artists' works to creators, while the remaining portion is rewarded to node operators. The top five artists by weekly playback volume can also earn token rewards.
Users can stake AUDIO to secure the platform and, in return, receive network fees, governance weight, and unlock features like artist tokens and badges.
Recommendation Rating: 3 stars
5. Voice Street
Website Visual: Diverse, with gaming attributes
Introduction: Voice Street is an NFT platform focused on music copyrights, intellectual property (IP) derivatives, and music-based GameFi.
Funding: Announced in December 2021 that it completed 3.5 million USD in institutional financing, with participating institutions including Huobi Ventures, Dragon Roark, Shima Capital, Lucid Blue Venture, RedLine Dao, AU21 Capital, Caballeros Capital, Halvings Capital, TMT Capital, Hotbit Labs, founders of NEO, founders of LABS Group, Chinapolka, Dota World Champion, BullPerks, Crypto VN, and BMW Capital.
Musician Onboarding:
Usability Rating: 3 stars
Voice Street's design includes an NFT copyright pledge mechanism, a multi-genre music NFT issuance mechanism, and an NFT staking mechanism. NFT asset owners can delegate their copyright-holding NFT assets to Voice Street for management and operation through staking. Voice Street returns the copyright operation income to the staking pool after deducting operational costs, maximizing the value of NFT copyrights and the rights of NFT owners.
Ways to profit on the Voice Street platform include:
- IP-NFT work issuance income
- Income from blind boxes, auctions, IP asset package issuance, etc.;
- Platform transaction fees, income from music IP copyright transactions;
- IP operation income, music IP copyright operation, potential musician support income;
Recommendation Rating: 3 stars
6. Mint Songs
Website Visual: Mysterious, testing version
Introduction: Aims to help creators bypass platforms and intermediaries to directly control ownership. Its product can help music artists cultivate an active Web3 community.
Funding: Announced in December 2021 that it secured 3 million USD in seed funding, led by Castle Island VC, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, North Island Ventures, Freestyle VC, IOSG Ventures, and Gramatik. Previous investors included AAF Management, Goodwater Capital, East West Ventures, Michael Lazerow (managing partner of Velvet Sea VC), and Ian Simon (CEO of Strangeloop Studios).
Musician Onboarding:
Usability Rating: 3 stars
Music creators can convert their creative assets into NFTs and sell or gift them to their communities here. Mint Songs can convert songs (audio + album artwork) into eco-friendly NFTs at zero cost, allowing users to showcase their music NFT collections.
Recommendation Rating: 4 stars
7. Token||Traxx
Website Visual: Black and red, pop music style
Introduction: Token||Traxx is an NFT platform built by musicians for the music community. It provides a new way to create, curate, and collect music.
Funding: Not disclosed
Usability Rating: 3 stars
The Token||Traxx platform will allow music creators, curators, and collectors to profit through the creation of NFTs.
Recommendation Rating: 2 stars
8. Melos Studio
Website Visual: Black minimalist style
Introduction: A Web 3.0 music NFT platform that uses DAO governance, allowing creators to gain inspiration through the NFT DNA Tree. Melos Studio has established a GitHub music creation process and serves as a social contact point for musicians and fans to communicate and share music.
Funding: Dapper Labs, Innovion, NGC Ventures, and Multichain Capital participated in several rounds of funding for Melos Studio.
Musician Onboarding:
Usability Rating: 5 stars
Creators' NFTs can be edited and recreated infinitely, and each creation can earn profits through contributions, with producers who have contributed to the NFT receiving dividends from each transaction.
Recommendation Rating: 5 stars
9. Genius
Website Visual: White minimalist style
Introduction: Genius is a music NFT marketplace platform.
Funding: Announced in June 2021 that it completed 4 million USD in seed funding, led by Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou, with participation from Mark Cuban, actor Ashton Kutcher, and Morgan Creek founder Anthony Pompliano, among others.
Usability Rating: 3 stars
Information and videos about NFT music can be found here. Profits can be earned by creating NFT works.
Recommendation Rating: 2 stars
10. Music NFT Project Nina Protocol
Introduction: In June 2021, the Nina Protocol, a music NFT project built on Solana and using Arweave for storage, announced its Litepaper and plans to launch a token economy.
Usability Rating: 5 stars
The low-latency transaction speed of the Solana blockchain allows the speed of publishing, purchasing, and selling music to rival existing centralized services. Artists can issue over 1,000,000 records for less than 0.30 USD in SOL.
Recommendation Rating: 5 stars
11. NFT Music Platform The HUSL
Website Visual: Black minimalist style
Introduction: NFT music platform
Token: HUSL
Usability Rating: 4 stars
Users can stake their tokens on the platform to earn "packs," exchange NFTs on the platform, vote on new music, participate in competitions, and receive invitations to exclusive events.
Recommendation Rating: 4 stars
12. Generative Music NFT Project EulerBeats
Website Visual: Black style
Introduction: EulerBeats is an NFT music and art project based on Polygon, featuring algorithmically generated art and audio.
Funding: The Eulerbeats development team Treum.io was established in 2016 and previously received investment from ConsenSys.
Usability Rating: 5 stars
What sets Eulerbeats apart is its royalty and economic model. New versions can be minted, providing income not only to the original record owner but also potentially benefiting those who mint new versions, with 8% of the income from minting new versions going to the original record owner.
Recommendation Rating: 5 stars
13. Sound.xyz
Website Visual: Pixel style
Introduction: Every song on the site can be listened to for free, but each song is limited to 25 editions, meaning only 25 people can buy and collect it.
Funding: In December 2021, the pioneering music startup Sound.xyz raised 5 million USD in seed funding, with investors including a16z, Variant Fund, Atelier Ventures, a few crypto angel investors, and artists like Holly Herndon, 21 Savage, and DJ Drama.
Usability Rating: 5 stars
Here, only buyers can comment on songs, and their comments can be seen by everyone. This means unique exclusivity for buyers who own this NFT.
Second Issue Learning Insights:
From a consumer's perspective, when I decide to purchase this NFT, I focus more on what different feelings or experiences it brings to my life after the purchase. If what I am buying is merely repetitive content, there is not much innovation beyond the technology itself.
Risk warning
Risk warning
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