It’s easy to think about blockchain technology as something that would only be useful for large financial companies looking to transfer large sums of money. However, as technology continues to evolve, blockchain technology is becoming more accessible for anyone, anywhere. In fact, it’s so accessible that there is a growing interest in how music artists can use it to earn money.
Many artists are now creating their own tokens to allow fans and other stakeholders to support their projects directly. In this article, we’ll explain how musicians and artists can make money from their blockchain-based products by using smart contracts and NFTs.
How Music Artists Make Money with NFTs
An NFT is an object that represents digital assets in the blockchain. NFTs are similar to physical items, but rather than being limited to tangible objects; they can represent almost anything. Web3, on the other hand, is a decentralized protocol that allows people to transfer and trade NFTs online. For example, as an artist, you could create an NFT of your art and sell it on the Web3 marketplace to make money. These NFTs could include anything from a custom guitar to a music video or song written or recorded.
In recent years, the blockchain industry has experienced significant growth in popularity. In the first half of 2021 alone, blockchain projects raised around $2.5B. With an average initial coin offering (ICO) price of around $5M, music artists are among the most lucrative beneficiaries of this growth.
Iman Europe, who has been in the music industry for more than 10 years, has discovered how it’s faster to earn through Web3. When she started selling her songs as NFTs in November 2021, the artistic freedom attracted her. Several months later, she’s also now enjoying financial freedom due to having her music valued at the price it deserves.
Europe also shared on Fortune how she made 1 ETH (a cryptocurrency) in just two minutes with her collaboration with Snoop Dog. She added that 1 ETH is equivalent to almost a million music streams. Imagine being able to earn in just a few minutes what you’d generally get for a million streams as a music artist.
With web3 technologies, musicians can take advantage of the distributed ledger technology that is currently transforming financial services and markets by creating and selling unique digital items—called non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—and earn profits. Using blockchain, issuing, managing, and trading these unique digital assets has become far easier, enabling musicians to connect with their fans in a new way, increase revenue, and create new opportunities for the entire music industry.
Bottom Line
With Web3 technologies (blockchains) becoming mainstream, musicians have more options and liberty for making money.
Blockchain technology is transforming how people create, distribute, and sell music. Artists aren’t dependent on record companies or streaming services any longer. They can decide what prices they want to charge for their music and earn royalties from any secondary sales. Furthermore, they can connect with their fans directly.