NFTs
Roblox players are about to get an eyeful — and potentially an earful — of KINGSHIP, the metaverse “supergroup” comprised of and managed by a shrewdness of Bored-and-Mutant Ape NFTs.
10:22PM, the Web3 label of Universal Music Group founded by Celine Joshua, announced on Thursday the launch of KINGSHIP Islands — an immersive in-game experience wherein Robloxers can work to unite the four band members on something called the “Floating Villa,” plus earn reward accessories and “acquire emotes for their avatars.” For minors with parents who are cool and totally not a drag, players can purchase customized animated heads and bodies for their avatars using Roblox’s facial animation technology.
As the game environment ages, more free virtual goods will be added along with new music produced by Hit-Boy and James Fauntleroy, the KINGSHIP “sonic creative team” that was announced a year ago. The band’s label said the pair — officially co-executive producers — are “overseeing the evolution of the group’s music direction and sound.”
The supergroup has yet to release music, and their manager Manager Noët All could not be reached for comment.
KINGSHIP Islands is free to play for any Roblox user, who must first complete various quests to gain access to the Floating Villa. Wanna skip all that? Owners of one of the 5,000 KINGSHIP Key Cards qualify for VIP access, along with special badges and other metadoodads. Key Card holders can access the villa at any time because they will have a special Roblox badge, which provide unique roles inside experiences, the label said.
The aforementioned Floating Villa, part of KINGSHIP Islands.
When they were released in July of 2022, the entire batch of Key Cards sold out in the span of a day, though they continue to trade on the secondary market. Over the last 30 days, 66 cards have been resold on OpenSea at an average price of 0.0592 ETH, or roughly $120 at the current exchange rate. The cards were designed to unlock forthcoming partnerships with major brands (see: Roblox), as well as unique artwork and immersive digital experiences.
10:22PM’s KINGSHIP project made its debut in November 2021 and is comprised of mutant ape Captain (vocals, bass) and bored ones KING (lead vocals), Arnell (beats, producer, drums) and Hud (guitar, keyboards, vocals). Avid NFT collector Jimmy McNeils supplied the apes for KINGSHIP from his own collection. At the time of launch it was billed as a “landmark, first-ever exclusive agreement to create a metaverse group.”
Hey look, a trailer:
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Since the dawn of the dotcom bubble, countless promising tech companies have flamed out shortly after starting up, often dragging investors down with them.
Billboard asked three prominent music tech advocates to identify the red flags that investors need to watch for and applied them to three sectors once touted as the future but since consigned to the past.
NFTs
One of the most-hyped tech innovations in recent years, non-fungible tokens generated $25 billion in total sales in 2021, according to market tracker DappRadar. The digital collectibles that are bought and sold using digital currencies drew big-name investors such as Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban and Guy Oseary and generated millions from successful NFT sales by artists like Diplo, Grimes and The Weeknd. But today, the chat rooms where NFT investors gather are “just such a sad place,” Diplo told Billboard in August. “It was such a mountain of hype.”
The once-popular Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, which Oseary represented and celebrities including Jimmy Fallon, Madonna and Justin Bieber promoted, has seen its floor price — a minimum dollar amount that indicates market demand — decline by 88% from its peak in April 2022. (Two money-losing Bored Ape NFT holders subsequently sued those celebrities, alleging they failed to disclose their financial stake in the company they were promoting.) The lesson? Raised in Space music/tech investment fund founder and managing partner Shara Senderoff says it’s crucial to remain “unfazed by the allure of potential brand partnerships, inflated market-size potential or endorsements from other investors. What truly matters is a focus on revenue generation and the scalability of the business model.”
Livestreaming
In the first year of the pandemic, over two dozen livestreaming companies launched — including Sessions, Bulldog DM and Dreamstage — offering fans the ability to stream concerts at home. Among the investors in the reportedly $1 billion industry were Sony Music Entertainment, Scooter Braun, Deezer and Superfly founder Rick Farman, drawn in by the industry veterans leading the companies and high lockdown demand. Over 113 million U.S. internet users viewed livestreams in the second quarter of 2020, according to market research and analysis company MusicWatch.
Ultimately, fans were overwhelmed. Bandsintown aggregated more than 44,000 global livestream events from late March 2020 to August 2021 — and once in-person events resumed, demand dwindled. After a wave of consolidation, only a few companies like Veeps, which Live Nation acquired in January 2021, claim to remain popular. Artist Partner Group/Artist Publishing Group head Mike Caren says he always looks for businesses that offer “a clear road map for their future development,” which in this case ought to have factored in the resumption of in-person live events.
Social Audio
Another area of music tech that flourished during the pandemic, social audio startups from Spotify, Amazon, X (formerly Twitter) and Clubhouse have all shut down or changed strategy in recent months. At its height, Amazon’s Amp, which the company closed in October, let users host their own shows by streaming music and drew high-profile acts like Lil Yachty, Nicki Minaj and Travis Barker for hosting gigs. While one such platform, Stationhead, remains popular, Raine Group partner Joe Puthenveetil is among investors who say it is usually wise to avoid “companies that rely on buzzwords” over time-tested business metrics.
Additional reporting by Kristin Robinson.
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.
The music industry has progressed rapidly over the last decade. TikTok is launching music careers, sites like YouTube are creating new distribution channels and artists like Grimes are open-sourcing their vocals for generative AI creation. But for all of that progress, the opaque systems that control the industry are not in favor of artists driving culture. As listeners, we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg with Taylor Swift’s highly publicized re-recording of her masters and Megan Thee Stallion’s legal dispute with her record label over unpaid royalties.
Music is the most consumed category of art on the planet, and it’s time to evolve the system so that all artists — from top recording stars to indie creators to those who are just getting their careers started — are set up to succeed. But to really grasp what’s needed to shift the power dynamic in the direction of artists, it’s important to peel back the complexities of music revenue.
Changing the narrative on music revenue
There’s a false narrative that is pervasive in the media that says music doesn’t generate any money, driven in large part by the litany of really bad record deals that draw public attention (like the aforementioned Megan Thee Stallion example). But in reality, music makes money — it’s the artists who don’t get paid what they deserve.
The streaming revolution of the 21st century has transformed the way people consume music. But despite streams making up 80-90% of the industry’s revenue, artists see few of those dollars after industry players take their inevitable cuts. Though record labels serve a valuable role in the music ecosystem (from marketing and developing an artist to licensing and distribution), artists can be haunted for decades by bad deals signed early in their careers that unknowingly give away creative control and a significant portion of their future earnings. Artists who have signed contracts with unfavorable terms typically don’t earn negotiating power until they’ve amassed a large following and a fruitful career.
Why the bad deals?
Most artists simply don’t know what they’re signing — it’s not necessarily that they’re making a bad decision. As an artist myself, I experienced this firsthand early in my career. It would take years for me to get paid for my songs — and as someone who’s proficient in accounting from my time studying business in college, my inability to see how much I made from my music was mind-boggling.
The reason that deals are so opaque is that music revenue is growing and coming from more sources than ever before, which creates a complex web of intermediaries within the ecosystem. Every different distributor has a different deal with every different streaming service, and every label has a different deal with every streaming service. And the streaming services are not transparent about how their rates differ across these various deals. Beyond that, there are numerous types of royalties — from performance royalties to mechanical royalties to in-app streaming royalties. Therefore, when it comes to signing on the dotted line, artists must blindly place their trust in a network of counterparties, lacking any real visibility into their actual earnings once every entity has taken their cut. All of this is perpetuated because record labels are incentivized to control information so they can make more competitive deals with artists.
As a result, artists gravitate to what comes naturally — the music. They don’t want to worry about the business side of things because the system isn’t set up in a way that empowers them to ask questions or negotiate favorable deals, and it distracts them from doing what they love.
Finding the opportunity in technology
To rewrite the way music institutions approach music revenue and income, we need to make it as transparent as possible. It seems like a lofty goal for an industry that has long been set in its ways, but technology is making it possible. My company Royal recently launched a free tool that allows any artist to estimate the streaming revenue for their songs. The hope is that artists become more empowered to make deals that uplift their careers.
I’ve also been bullish on crypto since its earliest days, for a variety of reasons, including its ability to transform the music industry with transparency. Blockchain is inherently transparent — in fact, the one thing you can’t do on a blockchain is hide information. It’s all there, at all times. It’s also time-stamped which establishes a clear provenance (traceability of ownership over time). This is especially useful in the music business, where copyright infringement plagues artists and record labels alike. Perhaps most importantly, leveraging tokens that represent rights enables artists to see the value of their songs and create tangible benchmarks upon which to negotiate better deals. With more information always comes more power.
Artists don’t know how much money they’re missing out on, but they could. And it doesn’t have to be a public battle when they do find out. If we embrace technological progress to improve outdated systems, we can create an open data ecosystem that gives artists not only more transparency into their earnings and fan bases but more control over their artistic careers. Better deals alongside more creative freedoms is a winning combination that can define the next 30 years of music — we just have to be willing to change.
Why should artists even care?
As much as streaming has changed the music industry for the better, there are still unanswered questions about how value accrues in this system. Do we equate the value of passively listening to a sleep playlist in the background to actively listening to your favorite album with friends?
This talk of numbers and questions of value may seem like a distraction for artists who just want to spend their time making music — but ignoring this topic completely opens the door to predatory industry practices that threaten musicians’ longevity and entire legacies.
More industry transparency should improve all the variables that play into an artist’s career and result in musicians keeping more ownership of the art they create. Having the humility to acknowledge what music is actually worth is the first step in unlocking more value in this new era of the industry.
Justin Blau is CEO of Royal and a world-renowned musician and producer, known as 3LAU. An early crypto adopter, Justin has been advocating for building the investable layer of music on blockchains since 2017. In 2021, he founded Royal to empower artists to share their music with fans and give people the opportunity to invest in music.
As the tech hype shifts from crypto to AI, the Web3 space is left trying to figure out sustainable use cases for NFTs and blockchain technology. Progress is being made through shared streaming royalties, Web3 fan clubs that unlock exclusive content, and a new wave of independent artists finding their first supporters and early fans by releasing their music on-chain.
However, Web3 still attracts cash grabs and, sometimes, outright scams. This mix of good and bad was reflected in April as many independent artists stood shoulder to shoulder with Snoop Dogg in terms of sales — but the month was marred by a rushed Soulja Boy NFT that was delisted from major platforms.
Overall, April was the worst month for NFT volume (in ETH terms) on the popular sales platform OpenSea since July 2021 and that weakness was reflected in the music NFT market. Volume across the 10 biggest projects netted 278.4 ETH, down from 381 ETH in March. In dollar terms, it’s $509,714, compared to March’s $697,393. Based on analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases combined with secondary sales volume on OpenSea, here are the 10 biggest-selling music NFTs and collections in March 2023.
1/ Soulja Boy – 3D Game NFT (Delisted by OpenSea)Monthly trading volume: 114 ETH ($208,734)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 114 ETH ($208,734)Drop date: April 6
After Soulja Boy was charged in March for promoting cryptocurrencies without disclosure by the SEC, the rapper dropped a series of NFTs, with one collection removed by OpenSea for copyright infringement.
Soulja Boy launched a collection of 500 3D NFTs which promised to unlock exclusive extras in his upcoming video game. The NFTs sold out within hours, generating 68 ETH ($124,508), but the collection was later taken down by leading NFT platform OpenSea because the artwork featured the Ferrari logo — a copyright infringement. The NFTs still exist on the Ethereum blockchain but cannot be traded or sold by holders. A second collection followed (without the Ferrari logo) generating 10 ETH ($18,310) volume, and a third collection of pixel art generated 36 ETH ($65,916).
The NFT community hit back at Soulja Boy, not only for the fumbled NFT projects but for pocketing as much as $730,000 over recent years for promoting crypto and NFTs — many of which turned out to be scams.
2/ Snoop Dogg – Various collectionsMonthly trading volume: 39.896 ETH ($73,049)Primary sales (March): 5.775 ETHSecondary sales: 34.121 ETHDrop date: various
A rare Snoop Dogg NFT — the “golden egg” from his XYZ track — sold for 20 ETH in April, the highest price paid for a single music NFT on Web3 music platform Sound.xyz. The “golden egg” is a unique 1/1 collectible associated with the song within the bigger collection of 10,000. Golden eggs are often valued highly by music collectors on the platform. Snoop Dogg also dropped another song, Let Me Hit That, on Sound.xyz last month, netting a further 5.74 ETH ($10,509), while his “Bacc on Death Row” NFT collection generated 14 ETH ($25,634) in trading volume on OpenSea.
View the collection on Sound.xyz.
3/ DeafbeefMonthly trading volume: $61,314Primary sales (March): $46,000Secondary sales: $15,314Drop date: March 2021
Deafbeef is a music project valued like fine art by many in the Web3 space. It’s a collection of generative music, created by an algorithm, and coded into existence on a 10-year old computer by musician Deafbeef. Minted straight to the Ethereum blockchain at the moment of creation, it represents an experimental art form only possible through Web3 and it’s considered one of the most important early NFT experiments. These rare items are often referred to as “grails” and thought of like art pieces. A single edition changed hands for $46,000 last month, while Deafbeef also sold a new piece at auction for $15,314.
View the collection on OpenSea.
4/ KINGSHIP – “Keycards”Monthly trading volume: 23 ETH ($42,113)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 23 ETHDrop date: May 2022
The Bored Ape Supergroup has become a permanent fixture of the monthly roundup with another month of strong trading volume on OpenSea through April. KINGSHIP recently launched a way for holders to generate rewards called ‘Crowns’ by participating in the community, which they can use to buy exclusive items and NFTs via a new auction system.
View the collection on OpenSea.
5/ PLS&TY – “New Color”Monthly trading volume: $37,229Primary sales (March): $37,229Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 27
PLS&TY is a prolific EDM producer with hundreds of millions of streams across his music on YouTube and Spotify. He’s also an early adopter in the NFT space. The producer’s latest collection on GALA Music — a Web3 music platform that Snoop Dogg called his home for Death Row Records featuring several NFTs drops from artists on the label — generated $37,229 with a collection of 300 audiovisual NFTs.
View the collection on OpenSea.
6/ X Li – “think i’m in love with you”Monthly trading volume: 20.121 ETH ($36,841)Primary sales (March): 20.121 ETHSecondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 26
Independent LA singer X Li exploded onto the Web3 music scene in April with a heartbreak ballad — a departure from the typical EDM and hip- hop sounds that dominate the space. The track quickly rocketed to the top three3 most collected songs on Sound.xyz with over 4,000 mints. X Li has previously worked with Sony Music Entertainment China but is now embracing Web3 and building a music community called Liberal Mafias.
View the collection on Sound.xyz.
7/ Violetta Zironni – “Another Life”Monthly trading volume: 11 ETH ($20,141)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 11 ETHDrop date: Feb. 20
Italian singer-songwriter Violetta Zironi launched an NFT collection, Another Life — an EP encompassing five tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Holders get access to virtual shows, live concerts and the ability to use the songs for their own projects. The project launched in February but continued to generate strong secondary sales through April.
View the collection on OpenSea.
8/ LNRZ – “Satellites”Monthly trading volume: 6.3 ETH ($11,535)Primary sales (March): 6.3 ETHSecondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 21
LNRZ is a music collective founded by Reo Cragun, a pioneering artist in the Web3 music space and vocalist on Flume’s EP “Quits.” The collective is known for releasing music NFTs every week through curated drops with select artists, but in April they released their first original body of work. Satellites is a six-track album featuring five emerging musicians that came together at a songcamp in Las Vegas. The LNRZ community voted on the price, supply and rarity structure of the NFT drop, which sold out 1,250 editions in 24 hours.
View the collection on Sound.xyz.
9/ Culture Code, Araya & RUNN – “After All”Monthly trading volume: ~$9,697Primary sales (March): ~$9,697Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 10
After All is a dreamy electronic track that racked up 800,000 streams since its release in February. DJ and producer duo Culture Code sold a percentage of streaming royalties in the track via music rights platform Royal. The pair sold approximately 100 gold tokens offering 0.1228% ownership each, and three diamond tokens at $899 each offering 1.6204%.
View the collection on Royal.
10/ Illenium – “Illenium Fire, Ice & Ash” digital deluxe albumsMonthly trading volume: $8,908Primary sales (March): $8,908Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: April 27
DJ and producer Illenium entered the top 10 in March with a Web3 access pass that granted access to a fan club powered by tech company Medallion. He returned in April with the release of a digital deluxe album, available in three limited editions, only to the fan club. Fans that own the first two editions can unlock the ultra-exclusive third edition, or two fans can team up to unlock the third.
Only available to fan club members.
Methodology: The chart was compiled using data from primary music NFT sales across 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases and combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data was captured between April 1 – April 30, 2023. Conversion rates from crypto to US dollars were calculated on April 30.
Disclaimer: The author owns NFTs from LNRZ and Snoop Dogg, however, the above list is based purely on sales data.
Lil Yachty has reached a settlement with a non-fungible token (NFT) seller called Opulous over allegations that the company used his name and likeness without permission to raise over $6.5 million in venture capital funds.
Yachty (real name Miles Parks McCollum) sued the company last year, claiming that Opulous launched an advertising blitz for a “Lil Yachty NFT Collection” that would give buyers access to new music from the rapper — without ever securing his approval.
But in a filing on Tuesday (April 11), attorneys for the company notified a federal judge that it had reached a settlement with Yachty to resolve the case. They said the case would be dismissed within 45 days, after the deal is finalized. Neither side offered additional details on the terms of the deal.
Yachty’s case against Opulous was one of several lawsuits filed last year over NFTs, a buzzy form of digital collectible that skyrocketed in popularity in 2021. But the market for NFTs largely collapsed last year, and the lawsuits filed over them are also beginning to drop off.
In his January 2022 complaint, Yachty called the Opulous project, which also included images of him, a “blatant and conscious disregard for plaintiff’s exclusive legal rights.” It additionally claimed that the company did press interviews about his alleged involvement in the project.
His lawyers said that Opulous had pitched his management team about a potential partnership, and that he joined a second call for a “a general introductory meeting,” but that the two sides never came close to signing a deal.
“There were no further communications between the parties, and accordingly no agreement or deal terms for plaintiff’s involvement in the defendants’ launch of the Opulous platform was ever reached,” the lawsuit read.
But even without his approval, Opulous then allegedly announced it would be launching a line of music NFTs and be “kicking things off with a series of unmissable NFT drops led by world-famous artists including Lil Yachty.” That was allegedly followed by numerous social media posts featuring similar claims, as well as images of the rapper, the suit said.
The suit, which also named Opulous founder Lee James Parson and his Ditto Music as defendants, claimed a slew of specific violations, including trademark infringement, unfair competition and a violation of Lil Yachty’s so-called right of publicity — the right to control how your name and likeness are commercially exploited.
March saw the launch of two Web3 record labels, a free NFT from Grimes and NFT streaming royalties tied to several viral hits. Overall, the crypto market has bounced back with Ethereum now 100% higher than its lows of last year, injecting some optimism back into the crypto economy.
However, it was a weaker month for music NFTs — a common symptom of the NFT market when crypto prices are trending higher as many buyers prefer to hold onto their ETH as it gains value. Volume across the 10 biggest projects netted 381 ETH compared to 1,016 ETH in February. In dollar terms, it’s $697,393 compared to February’s $1.6 million. Based on analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases combined with secondary sales volume on OpenSea, here are the 10 biggest-selling music NFTs and collections in March 2023.
1/ Helix Records Genesis PassMonthly trading volume: 137 ETH ($250,710)Primary sales (March): ~91 ETHSecondary sales: 46 ETHDrop date: March 10
Patrick Moxey, founder of PayDay and Ultra Records, has launched a new label with Web3 at its heart. Helix Records sold 3,333 NFT genesis passes in March, granting access to the inner workings of the label. Holders can pitch their music to Helix Records’ A&R team, get access to free tickets and claim a free NFT of Marshall Jefferson’s iconic house classic ‘Move Your Body.’ Moxey aims to onboard the label’s entire roster of dance artists into Web3.
View the collection on OpenSea.
2/ Grimes – Gen-1 AvatarsMonthly trading volume: 60.7 ETH ($111,081)Primary sales (March): 60.7 ETHSecondary sales: N/ADrop date: March 24
To celebrate a performance at Ultra Festival, Grimes dropped a free NFT on Web3 platform Zora in March. The Grimes Gen-1 avatars will unlock quests, exclusive music and other digital experiences. More than 78,000 were minted in a 7-day window. Although the NFTs were free, each edition was subject to a 0.000777 platform fee which generated a total of 60.7 ETH.
View the collection on Zora.
3/ Dreams Never Die – Founders PassMonthly trading volume: 46 ETH ($84,180)Primary sales (March): ~40 ETHSecondary sales: 6 ETHDrop date: March 15
Dreams Never Die is a record label founded by Chad Hillard, credited for discovering Billie Eilish and breaking “Ocean Eyes” through his music blog HillyDilly when the track had less than 1,000 plays on SoundCloud. Fast forward eight years and Hillard’s record label Dreams Never Die has established itself deeply in Web3 culture.
The label was the first to release a debut single as an NFT via their flagship artist Sloe Jack and last month launched a thousand Founders Passes. The NFT gives holders the opportunity to participate in the label as scouts and other roles, as well as get direct feedback on music.
View the collection on OpenSea.
4/ KINGSHIP – Key CardsMonthly trading volume: 37 ETH ($67,710)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 37 ETHDrop date: July 2022
The Bored Ape supergroup launched a new initiative in March called Crowns. Members of the KINGSHIP community can earn Crowns by helping out new members, retweeting social posts, sharing music and engaging in the Discord server. The Crowns can then be redeemed for items in the upcoming KINGSHIP digital store.
View the collection on OpenSea.
5/ Violetta Zironi – Another Life Monthly trading volume: 30 ETH ($54,900)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 30 ETHDrop date: Feb. 20
Italian singer-songwriter Violetta Zironi recently launched a new collection, Another Life — an EP encompassing five tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Holders get access to virtual shows, live concerts and the ability to use the songs for their own projects. The project launched in February but continued to generate strong secondary sales through March.
View the collection on OpenSea.
6/ Maddix – Heute NachtMonthly trading volume: $36,990 Primary sales (March): $36,990Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: March 15
Producer Maddix released Heute Nacht in October of last year and it quickly turned into a viral hit, racking up 20 million Spotify streams in five months. In March, the track was released as a collection of 260 NFTs via Royal, offering a percentage of streaming royalties in the hit song. 250 ‘Gold’ tokens give holders 0.0295% of royalties while 10 ‘Diamond’ NFTs offer 0.262% ownership.
7/ David Guetta, Martin Garrix, Romy Dya, Jamie Scott – So Far AwayMonthly trading volume: $30,781Primary sales (March): $28,000Secondary sales: 1.52 ETH ($2,781)Drop date: March 28
With 352 million streams, So Far Away dropped as a collection of 200 NFTs in March, each offering 0.01% ownership in the track. The NFT was released via Anotherblock which unlocks streaming royalties in major hits, usually via a producer or songwriter’s share rather than the lead artist. In this case, the NFT is released through featured artist Romy Dya.
8/ Reo Cragun – SpentMonthly trading volume: 15.6 ETH ($28,548)Primary sales (March): ~7.5 ETHSecondary sales: 7.9 ETHDrop date: March 28
Rapper and producer Reo Cragun has been at the forefront of independent Web3 music for the last 18 months, previously appearing in this chart for his EP Criteria with Daniel Allan in December. Cragun returned in March with a new single “Spent.”
The track was the first to use a new drop format on Web3 music platform sound.xyz called Sound Swap. The mechanism begins with a familiar 24-hour mint period where fans can buy as many editions of the song as they want for 0.005 ETH (~$7). However, when the 24 hour period ends, the price rises steadily for each additional purchase.
If there is sufficient demand and the price rises, existing collectors can instantly sell at the current price — an innovative upgrade from trying to trade or sell NFTs on a secondary market like OpenSea. The track generated 1,500 mints in the first 24 hours and an additional 350 mints using the Sound Swap mechanism.
View the collection on OpenSea.
9/ Illenium – Phoenix Family Founders PassMonthly trading volume: $28,000Primary sales (March): $28,000Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: March 29
DJ and producer Illenium launched a Web3 fan club in March called The Phantom Family, powered by tech platform Medallion. Once inside, fans could mint the Phoenix Family Founders Pass for $25 each, giving them access to a digital jersey, fast-track access to merchandise and exclusive content. Illenium sold 1,132 in a two-day window.
View the collection on OpenSea.
10/ Wes Ghost – SleepwalkingMonthly trading volume: 12.6 ETH ($23,058)Primary sales (March): 10.7 ETHSecondary sales: 1.9 ETHDrop date: March 16
Wes Ghost exploded onto the Web3 music scene in March with a debut single “Sleepwalking” — a pop-punk electronic crossover anthem. Using an NFT character from the “Kid Called Beast” NFT collection to front the project, Wes Ghost sold 2,351 editions of the track by tapping into dozens of different NFT communities through giveaways and cross-collaboration.
View the collection on OpenSea.
Methodology: The chart was compiled using data from primary music NFT sales across 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases and combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data was captured between March 1 – March 31, 2023. Conversion rates from crypto to US dollars were calculated on March 31.
Disclaimer: the author owns NFTs from Reo Cragun and Dreams Never Die, however, the above list is based purely on sales data.
Ticketmaster has rolled out crypto wallet integration for Avenged Sevenfold’s upcoming tour, allowing NFT holders from the heavy metal band’s fan club — Death Bats Club — to get priority access to tickets and reserved seating with no queues.
Fans have already used the feature to purchase tickets for events at New York’s Madison Square Garden and The Forum in Los Angeles ahead of the general public. Now the initiative will now go live for the rest of the dates available on Ticketmaster. “We have integrated Death Bats Club into Ticketmaster,” confirmed singer Matt Sanders on Twitter, “assuring that fans get the best tickets at the best prices without bots, scalpers and long wait-times.”
Shadows was instrumental in pushing the Ticketmaster integration forward, and has been an early advocate for NFTs and Web3. The band launched the Death Bats Club in 2021 — a collection of 10,000 NFTs with unique visual traits that unlock real-life perks such as care packages, meet-and-greet opportunities, and now early-access ticketing.
Ticketmaster has already issued more than 5 million NFTs as commemorative tokens for major events including the Super Bowl, but this is the first token-gated integration for purchasing tickets directly. Currently it is a pilot program but may roll out to more artists based on demand. “Avenged Sevenfold used the capability to offer first access to tickets, but there are a variety of ways it can be used by artists in the future,” said David Marcus, Ticketmaster’s executive vp of global music, in a statement. “From unlocking premier seats to special experiences like sitting in on soundcheck.”
Ticketmaster’s token-gated sales are currently compatible with tokens minted on Ethereum and stored in dapp wallets, such as MetaMask or Coinbase.
“Token-gated ticket sales are available as part of our expanding Web3 services and other features that help artists set their own terms on how tickets get to fans,” said Marcus. “Any artist who is minting their own NFTs or partnering with another independent community can explore with token-gated ticketing now.”
This marks the latest mainstream Web3 wallet integration after Spotify recently launched token-gated playlists as a pilot feature with several NFT projects including KINGSHIP and Overlord. Holders can connect their wallet and listen to exclusive playlists curated by their communities.
The Web3 fan club model — such as Death Bats Club — has emerged as a resilient use-case for blockchain technology even as the hype around NFT trading fades. Artists such as The Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki and Portugal. The Man have found token-gated communities as a way to engage more closely with their biggest fans and deliver exclusive perks and content.
For example, Chainsmokers host a Discord community open only to NFT holders where the duo regularly talk directly with their fans and offer meet-and-greet exclusives. Steve Aoki launched the “Aokiverse” NFT club with six different levels of ownership offering discounts and backstage access. Santigold, Tycho and Sigur Ros have all launched free Web3 fan clubs using a white label tech platform called Medallion where fans get first access to exclusive content.
3LAU is close to a settlement to end a lawsuit claiming the DJ refused to properly share the earnings from an $11.7 million NFT auction with a musical collaborator.
Citing the fact that the two sides were “near a settlement in principle,” a New York federal judge on Monday tentatively dismissed the lawsuit filed by musician Luna Aura over the huge proceeds from the much-publicized NFT auction of his album Ultraviolet.
Aura (real name Angela Anne Flores) launched the lawsuit last fall, claiming 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from, even though she said she was owed a 50 percent recording royalty from one of the songs on the album called “Walk Away.”
“Despite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment of twenty-five thousand dollars as compensation in connection with the sale of Ultraviolet and ‘Walk Away’ NFTs,” her lawyers wrote at the time. 3LAU strongly denied the allegations, with his manager saying they would “vigorously defend the lawsuit.”
Specific terms of the tentative settlement were not disclosed in public court records, and neither side provided additional details when contacted by Billboard. If the deal is not finalized within 30 days, the judge said the parties could reopen the case and resume litigating.
Even during 2021’s fever-dream craze for NFTs (non-fungible tokens), 3LAU’s Feb. 2021 auction stood out as notable. By selling 33 collectible tokens linked to his 3-year-old album Ultraviolet — the NFTs gave the buyers access to vinyl copies, unreleased music and other special experiences — the DJ-producer raked in $11.7 million. “It was one of those moments in my life where I was like, ‘Holy s—,’” 3LAU told Billboard at the time. “‘I think we just changed everything.’”
But according to Aura’s November lawsuit, he didn’t share those profits with a key person who helped create the album. She says her contract guaranteed her a 50% recording royalty on “Walk Away,” and that she also owned 30% of the underlying musical composition. The lawsuit did not specify exactly how much moneys he believed she was owed from the auction.
In a statement to Billboard after the case was filed, 3LAU’s manager Andrew Goldstone strongly denied the allegations: “These claims are without merit, and we will vigorously defend the lawsuit that was just filed yesterday without any prior notice. There are no set standards for how to approach an NFT project like this, which involved much more than just the music. Justin’s team tried for months to reach a deal with Flores in good faith, but she stopped responding and instead chose to file a lawsuit.”
Goldstone declined to comment on Monday’s order announcing the near-settlement. Aura’s attorney, Moish E. Peltz, did not return a request for comment.
Even though NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are experiencing a lull in 2023 following a boom the two previous years, the companies behind NFT technology are pressing forward to prove the initial buzz wasn’t a fluke.
One of those companies, OneOf, got a boost in February when Stephen Cooper, Warner Music Group’s CEO from 2011 to the end of 2022, joined the Miami-based company’s board of directors. A little over a year after Warner Music announced a partnership with OneOf to create exclusive NFTs for its recording artists, Cooper has high praise for the company. “I think that it’s the right organization with the right vision and the right tech at the right time,” he says.
NFTs are part of a technological shift away from websites with user-generated content (Web2) to decentralized (Web3) applications that utilize blockchain technology. They landed on many people’s radars in April 2021 when NBA Top Shot sold a video of a dunk by basketball superstar LeBron James — a one-of-a-kind digital collectible on the blockchain — for a startling $387,600. Dapper Labs, which provides Top Shop’s blockchain technology, is one of many Web3 startups to receive financial backing from Warner Music Group during Cooper’s tenure as CEO. Indeed, Warner has given its stamp of approval to a bevy of forward-thinking platforms and technologies in recent years. It invested in such companies as Roblox two months before it went public in March 2021, as well as DRESSX, a digital fashion retailer, and generative music startups Authentic Artists and Lifescore.
Being the “next big thing” has come with disappointments, though. NFT sales fell from more than $6.3 billion in January 2022 to about $1 billion in February 2023, according to NFT aggregator CryptoSlam, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts have suffered through the collapses of trading platform FTX and stablecoin Terra, among other high-profile failures. Along the way, NFTs earned a reputation for being expensive digital artwork with little purpose other than to — hopefully — appreciate.
Today, Web3 and NFTs are behind everything from fractionalized ownership of music royalties to proof of attendance at concerts or virtual events. For OneOf CEO Lin Dai, Web3 has the potential to transform the way artists build communities. “I liken it to if this was 1997 and I went to either a music artist or music label or just a brand to say, ‘Hey, you have your fan club or your consumer following, and you have millions of mailing addresses that you communicate with them,’” says Dai. “‘There’s this thing called email that’s coming that’s going to make that relationship much easier and we have software to do that.’ This is kind of the stage where I’m at.”
Stephen, what attracted you to the board of OneOf?
Cooper: Well, I’ve known Lin for a number of years. Warner has invested in him. And I’ve not only liked the way that the company has been able to pivot over time as the tech space morphed, but more importantly, I think that what they’ve done and what they’re going to continue to do — by building out this blockchain technology and being able to utilize that technology in conjunction with the superfast capabilities to mint NFTs — it’ll create an amazing opportunity for utilization not only in music but across a spectrum of any number of consumer brands that are interested in building communities of their fans or followers or admirers, and utilize that capability to turbocharge the success in their businesses.
Lin, what do you think Stephen’s going to bring to the company?
Dai: I’ve always admired the amazing work Stephen has done at Warner Music. If you think about 11 years ago or 12 years ago, when he took on the job, the music industry was very much in disarray and disrupted by potentially the idea of digital transformation. It was able to turn that into a position of strength, to doubling down on digital transformation, like the Spotify deal and the partnership with YouTube. Warner, even as the smallest of the three major labels, has really done a tremendous job in taking market share. And Steve’s broader experience in his life before Warner — Steve was CEO of MGM and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. It just spans a lot of different industries. Over the years, I always feel like every time I talked to him, we learned a lot as a young startup with hot technology. A lot of the bigger picture of how industry moves, and how our technology can apply to industry, Steve brings a wealth of knowledge [to].
Not all artists jumped on digital downloads right away. There were some notable holdouts once iTunes was out. What are your conversations with artists and their teams like? Tell me about their understanding of Web3 and where they sit? What is that education process like?
Cooper: Well, I think that it really goes across an entire spectrum, where there are people that go anywhere from not interested all the way to people that embrace it or immerse themselves more fully into it. I think that what will happen is that, like with any new technology, there’s a period of skepticism, then there’s the period of testing, then there’s the period of early adoption. And once the early adopters begin to proselytize the technology, you can see generally that it begins to accelerate at a fairly rapid pace.
The good news, I think, for Web3, is that for many artists — and again, it’s much broader than music — but for the Gen Zs, the millennials that have grown up in a digital age as opposed to people like me, that acceptance and that adoption has accelerated. There used to be a much greater mean time between the introduction and the broad acceptance of technology. Those mean times have collapsed over the last two or three decades, where new technologies are embraced much more rapidly. There are millions of people that have, primarily through gaming, immersed themselves in these new technologies and these metaverses for some length of time now. With these better foundational technologies and the ability to keep track of who’s got what at all times it’s something that people…are far better off embracing than rejecting.
And the music industry, in large part, has had a history — as far as I can tell being mostly an outsider looking in — that if they had looked at Napster in a different way, they would have controlled file sharing. If they had listened to [former Apple CEO Steve] Jobs differently, they would have controlled downloads. And if they had acquired Spotify in the early days, the industry would have controlled streaming as opposed to allowing these technical iron curtains to get between content and fandom. And I think what people will begin to realize in Web3 is that it creates another shot for the industry to converge content with distribution, where the artists and the fan are right up against each other as opposed to being separated by this tech iron curtain.
Lin, where are we on the Web3 hype cycle? You’re familiar with this curve? There’s an initial peak of buzziness followed by a trough of disillusionment. Have we fallen down into that trough right now? And what does that mean for OneOf?
Dai: I hope we have completely fallen down and rode around for a few cycles and are ready to climb out now. You know, I think in the last 18 months, the general excitement really is great for mainstream awareness of Web3 and NFT technology, but we only really used it for two use cases. One is high-end digital art. The other is how to use this technology for a profile picture on my Twitter account. If you’re talking about the internet in, like, 1997, there’s going to be 990 other use cases we haven’t even started fathoming.
We work closely with Pepsi and Anheuser Busch, and American Express is a major investor in our last round. In music, we are working on tool sets for artists and creators, but also on things that directly impact the kind of three pillars of the music business today, like how does Web3 technology enhance the experience of streaming? How does Web3 technology do a better job at ticketing? How can Web3 technology be applied in the realm of publishing and rights? So those are much deeper and more long-term kinds of use cases. The most recent hype cycle was about speculators getting involved. That’s not really a sustainable model for any industry.
You mentioned American Express. When Amex Ventures invested in OneOf, the managing director referred to brands’ involvement in NFTs as “experimenting.” So, what have brands learned from the experiments so far?
Dai: The ask is no longer, “How do we do a profile picture collection?” It’s, “How do we build entire systems that connect our data that we know about consumers to allow them to really have a full ecosystem, whether it’s rewards, whether it’s commerce, whether it’s better communication?” So, there is kind of a quiet race for Web3 by all the major Web2 companies right now — or even Web1 companies. I think it’s unlike the dot-com bust where I think most companies wrote off the internet and everybody went back to brick-and-mortar for 10 years. And that’s how you allowed Amazon to have such dominance. There were only a few companies that really stayed the course.
Now, I think every major company, whether you’re CPG [consumer packaged goods] or you are music streaming — Spotify just rolled out some new software — everybody kind of knows and believes Web3 is going to happen. They know today’s tools suck. Today’s tools are not good for beer drinkers or fans that just want to go to a festival [to] enjoy and don’t want to connect a crypto wallet. That’s why they are actively looking for solutions.
Stephen, from a label’s point of view, how is Web3 different and how do you tackle it? Is it like traditional digital marketing or promotion? There is an element of community to it. That is a different relationship than labels have typically had, maybe outside of fan clubs. What challenges does that bring to a label?
Cooper: I think it does several things. One, it does bring challenges because I think that Web3 will heighten the requirements for many artists to introduce music on a far more regular basis. There’s some artists that will adapt and adopt. There will be some artists that won’t — but the labels will also begin to attract a new generation of artists that have been immersed in the digital world since birth, have been immersed in social platforms, and will flow naturally into Web3.
The advantage that I see for labels is that even though they will be, you know, paying a tolling fee to be on these platforms — whether it’s Roblox, Sandbox, Fortnite, whatever, inside of those worlds — they will be able to create their own worlds, to draw music fans, fans of specific artists, into those worlds where they will be able not only to interact with the artists on a regular basis, but they will be able to interact with each other on an ongoing basis. So, the relationship with the artist, one, should deepen considerably. Two, the relationships between super fan to super fan ought to accelerate. The glue that holds fans’ loyalty to those artists ought to strengthen through the ramp-up of interaction, both horizontally and vertically. I think that the labels understand this.
It’s been very public at Warner that they’ve invested heavily in Web3. They are building out spaces in Web3. They are experimenting with their artists in Web3. And I think that as they refine those experiments, as they refine their approaches, they will find that this gives them a freshened opportunity to really bring content and distribution together and take advantage of a situation that they missed in the late ‘90s, the early 2000s, and in 2010.
Some people think Web3 is an opportunity for artists to gain more independence. In some Warner earnings calls, you’ve talked about the artists’ need for labels in the Web3 environment. Are both of those true?
Cooper: I think that people will take a shot at Independence. Here’s what I see as the math problem: If you talk to YouTube, or you talk to TikTok, they will say that there 20, 25, 30, 35 million musical artists that use TikTok use YouTube [and] so on and so forth. So, you start with that number. What Web2 and Web3 have done — or will do — is democratized access. But what they can’t democratize is talent.
When you look today at the active rosters of Universal, Sony and Warner, there are probably less than 15,000 artists. Those artists — in conjunction with the catalogs [owned by] the three, plus BMG and a few others — represent 85% of all the listening on the planet. And if you think about 20 or 25 years of American Idol, of The Voice, of America’s Got Talent, after 25 or 30 years, you can name on one hand the people that have made it. When you look at TikTok, there’s only one or two or three [star] artists that have emerged over the last few years. And YouTube has been the same. Those that have emerged have ended up having the global machine of a label behind them. Because it is so hard even with extraordinary talent to be recognized and to do it on your own is almost impossible. The fact of the matter is to be able to be recognized as that talent and then have the right machine behind you with the right global footprint is just not something most young artists are capable of doing on their own.
Lin, Stephen said Web2 is not going away. This week, we saw news that Spotify is testing NFT-accessed playlists. Do you see Web2 and Web3 integrating in ways like that?
Dai: Yeah, absolutely. We did the first-ever beta with Spotify integration last year with some of our artists, that was early Web3. So Web2 companies certainly are very much embracing Web3. Web3 is not really replacing traditional businesses. But what Web3 does really well is this idea of creating community. If you think about traditional fan clubs, you used to write a letter and put $2 in there and somebody mails you back a sticker, right? That’s replaced by a kind of an email fan club. And everyone says, “Okay, here’s a link, you get to go buy our concert ticket earlier,” but it’s still kind of a one-to-many relationship. The value exchange is still a one-way street. The artist is asking the fan to please spend money for [their] product or experiences.
Web3 is interesting because it really encourages members to work with each other. Because you’re basically receiving a digital asset. That price can fluctuate based on how engaged the membership is. You’re incentivized to go out there and evangelize for your artist and really make sure you’re potentially participating in the success of the artists, whatever that may be. Now for the artists, the algorithms of Spotify really created this kind of this all-or-nothing world. You’re either one of the 500 artists that is making a killing because the algorithm just keeps feeding that or you just you don’t break through. So Web3 changes that. I can make a living only having 500 super fans. I don’t need to be the next Taylor Swift.
I grew up in China. I played the accordion. I was a very good accordion player when I was in elementary school. So, if I’m just passionate and want to play accordion, maybe I can rally up like 100, 200, 500 super fans, but it’s very, very hard for me to be on a Taylor Swift level. The reality is as a passionate musician if you just can’t make a living doing what you do now — streaming — you can’t support yourself. You have to take on a different soul-crushing job that you’re not passionate about. And at some point, life comes at you, and you have to give up your art.
But Web3 potentially enables a whole slew of creators to be able to do their art for a living, if they can use the tools to really gather and rally around just a few hundred super fans. And I think in the long run, that’s a better world, if we just have more art being created and people being happy doing what they do.
Cooper: I think Lin’s point is well taken. And I think that what will separate, whether it be at a small scale or a large scale, whether or not there’s really talent there versus just noise. And you may recall that a year or two or three ago when Spotify began to mess with their playlists and push things that they wanted to push, versus what music fans wanted to hear, they got a lot of backlash because they were pushing stuff that people just didn’t want to listen to. And people generally can differentiate what they believe is really good stuff from really bad stuff.
[Spotify CEO Daniel] Ek said, I don’t know 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago, he said you wanted a million artists to be able to make a living on Spotify. And he kind of defined that as being able to make $100,000 a year at the time. Well, it was pretty easy to do the math and figure out what that would mean by way of Spotify’s size and subscriptions and streams. Three or four months later, they quietly abandon that idea because they really don’t know how to market and promote. They know algorithms. But when you’re promoting music, an algorithm is a poor substitute for marketing and promotion to build traction. So, I think that when he abandoned that idea, it was kind of an acknowledgment that while algorithms could feed things up to people, the handoff to Web3, is that that artist may be able — to Lin’s point — [to] rally 100, 200, 300 people to make a living.
Even on TikTok, which is kind of a democratic community, even though it is Web2, all the money is being made by 1/10 of 1% at the top of the pyramid, and everybody else is just having fun. And then they end up with 1,000 or 2,000 followers, but without that talent, it’s hard to be in these environments and make a living. Web3 will actually enhance that possibility. And God bless the accordion players.
It’s been more than two years since news of multi-million dollar NFT (non-fungible token) sales first hit the music headlines. In 2021, Grimes made $6 million overnight with a collection of audiovisual NFTs, 3LAU raised $11.6 million in a record-breaking auction and Steve Aoki claimed to have made more money from NFTs than 10 years of record label advances.
For a moment, it looked like NFTs were a new way to value music, unlocking seemingly enormous sums of money for artists. Now, in the cold light of a crypto bear market where NFT trading has fallen 85% from previous highs, those sales figures were unsustainable in hindsight. Instead, rather than trying to sell NFTs at extortionate prices, artists are experimenting with a starkly different tactic to engage their fan bases: giving them away for free.
At the grassroots level, independent artists are giving out free NFTs to capture their earliest fans and kickstart a community. At the superstar level, artists like The Chainsmokers are using free NFTs to reward their fanbases. Far beyond speculation, platforms in the space have pivoted to focus on non-financial use cases such as integrating free NFTs into Spotify pre-save campaigns, incentivizing email capture, Web3 fan clubs, token-gated exclusive content, community building, rewards and commemorative tokens.
Chainsmokers Alex Pall and Drew Taggart were among the first to tap into the new trend. The duo watched the NFT explosion play out while recording their fourth album, So Far So Good, but instead of following the million-dollar playbook, they gave away 5,000 NFTs tied to their album for free. The NFTs also grant fans a 0.0002% share of streaming royalties in the album. The duo doesn’t even take a cut of the NFT’s secondary sales, which go straight to the album’s songwriters.
“Alex and Drew literally made no money from these NFTs,” says Adam Alpert, the duo’s manager. “In fact they lose money because they’re giving a royalty away.”
So why didn’t the Chainsmokers follow the NFT hype and cash in? “That didn’t really appeal to us,” says Alpert. “We didn’t believe it was the right use of the tech at this time.” Rather than financial speculation, the Chainsmokers saw NFTs as a way to deepen their relationship with fans. “Having a happy superfan as a result of this is worth more money than selling an NFT.”
The Chainsmokers have built their entire NFT campaign around free giveaways and exclusive fan experiences. NFT holders get access to a “gated” Discord server where Pall and Taggart interact with fans directly, answer questions and play music. Instead of paid meet and greets, the duo invites token holders to meet backstage at shows. “It really felt like [the fans] were a part of something that no one else was,” says Alpert. “That’s the power of NFTs.”
What started out as free NFTs now change hands for an average of $55 each. The tokens have naturally increased in value as the duo has added new perks for their fans, such as a recent free “airdrop” of the lo-fi version of the album. Perhaps Web3’s killer use case, then, is not the hyper-financialization of music, but a “sincere, modern version of the fan club,” as Alpert puts it.
NFT platforms are also pivoting to explore these free use cases. Decent.xyz started out as a Web3 music platform to sell NFTs backed by streaming royalties but now offers a range of non-financial Web3 tools for artists. “Our team has always been in pursuit of less speculative use cases,” says Charlie Durbin, founder of Decent.xyz. “They force people to consider what NFTs are good for beyond patronage and trading.”
Durbin sees free NFTs as a new layer in the artist’s funnel allowing them to convert fans on social media into stickier “collectors.” Emails and phone numbers are difficult to collect, he says, but “free NFTs promise to tilt those odds.”
Another platform called Showtime.xyz allows artists to give fans a free NFT in exchange for pre-saving their track on Spotify. Meanwhile, POAP is an app through which artists can give fans a free NFT as a reward for showing up to digital and IRL events.
Last year, independent pop artist Annika Rose gave out almost 500 POAPs to her fans every time she interacted with them, acting as proof that they supported her at the start of her career. “She needed to grow [her community] one member at a time,” says Hannah Hyman, Web3 project manager at NVAK Collective, the Web3 record label that represents Rose. “By offering a free POAP to people Annika engaged with, she could timestamp when she connected with them, introduce them to her artistry, and begin to develop a relationship with them without having to sell anything.”
When Rose later released a paid NFT, she put all POAP holders on a “presale” list at a discounted price. It sold out immediately, ensuring the NFT went straight to her earliest fans and supporters rather than speculative traders.
Avoiding speculators was also key for The Chainsmokers. “We tried to minimize it the best that we can,” says Alpert. Eighty percent of the tokens were available only to the Chainsmokers VIP list for the first two hours, ensuring that existing fans had priority access.
Of course, none of this means speculation and financialization of NFTs will disappear. “I’m not naysaying it as a revenue stream,” Alpert clarifies. “I think it can be really helpful for developing artists, especially those with a small but loyal fanbase. But I think for big artists, a much more powerful and pragmatic use is creating a community.”
The future of Web3 is likely somewhere in the middle: A healthy combination of non-speculative NFTs to build community combined with financial NFTs to unlock new revenue streams. In hindsight, many are realizing that turning the music industry into a casino was perhaps a misjudgment, but sustainable use cases for blockchain and NFTs could still add value to an artist’s relationship with their fans.