A new view on music NFTs
Music NFTs are opening a new world of opportunities for musicians and rights holders. As the market develops, we see more projects, marketplaces and music companies joining the space with innovative and unique ways to exploit this opportunity.
In this post, we’ll be sharing what we believe to be an honest and objective view about how the market looks for music NFTs, how it reflects on the existing music industry, and hopefully, an unbiased commentary on what it should look like.
The reality about the overly saturated space of Music NFT marketplaces
We’ll start admitting that we contributed to this for a while. We started as a data company and wanted this data to be accessible and transparent — our thesis is that offering this level of data can improve adoption while updating the music industry.
So there we went, looking for a monetisation avenue and decided to open up a music NFT marketplace. We did quite well and partnered with great organisations to sell NFTs as marketing assets (remember our exclusive Eurovision NFT? 😏). However, we decided to pivot and explore a better use of NFT technology. As we’ll explain next, the underlying NFT technology is what’s really revolutionary and can truly change music for good.
According to Dopr, there are around 250 music NFT dedicated marketplaces. And based on the data we’ve been compiling, the market cap for music NFTs at the time of writing is around $20M. With simple maths (and assuming an equal distribution of this market across all platforms) it makes it a $80k revenue potential per platform.
We’re not looking to be thought provoking or controversial but to offer a top level overview of the current reality. Too many startups are trying to do the same thing (with tweaks here and there) but giving a slight blind eye to the current situation they’re putting themselves into.
“We’re connecting artists with fans”
Said every single music NFT marketplace.
Musicians have always been connected to fans. They connect in different ways, whether it’s via live performances, meet & greets, social media… . Connecting artists & fans has existed for a long time.
After having gone the marketplace route, we understand that music NFTs used as marketing tools might not be what the music industry needs now.
We know. We said we’d be unbiased at the start of the post. If you think about it, it might sound like we’re talking sh*t about NFTs.
For the avoidance of doubt, we’re not. We love NFTs and we love the wealth of opportunities the technology brings. We’re excited to be part of this change and look forward to a complete “software upgrade” (can we use the term “merge” here?) in the music industry.
“How do you propose NFTs should be used in music?” you may ask
Great question, hypothetical skeptical reader.
As mentioned in our previous post, we’re using NFT technology to tackle a silent problem in the music industry: royalty payments.
It’s common to see in the news that artists do not get paid enough, or that streaming services have the tech monopoly in music. We believe there are other issues that are potentially more technical for the common listener and independent artist but it’s a major problem that needs resolving.
We’re proposing a use of very detailed data with transparent transactions that can completely change the way artists are paid. We’re not saying we want to destroy Spotify, or that labels are bad. Au contraire! We want to work with them to implement that “software update” the music industry needs.
A new music metadata standard
The team at Soundpickr has been developing a proprietary metadata standard that will allow us to track music usage, collect royalties, and report & pay these royalties in real time (or as real time as the blockchain allows us to).
In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be posting all the details about this new standard that will be compatible across all chains and allow musicians to collect royalties regardless of which chain they chose for their music.
Hopefully this ends the post in a positive note. We started quite grim, we know, but it’s important to understand music as a wider ecosystem that requires more than selling assets for marketing purposes.
And we’re excited to have you, our partners, and everybody in the team as part of this exciting new journey.
Where can you get the best of us?
Twitter: For regular updates, data, interviews (Twitter spaces twice a week)
https://twitter.com/soundpickr
Reddit: In-depth discussions, music conversations
https://www.reddit.com/user/soundpickr
Blog: General music industry analysis & music NFT insights
https://blog.soundpickr.com/blog/
Medium: Regular & detailed updates about Soundpickr
https://soundpickr.medium.com/
Discord: For community and support queries
https://discord.gg/4ByPgFeEYw
