• Music industry has been influenced by the availability of cryptocurrency-backed labels.
• StarCoin, which is the first cryptocurrency-backed record label worldwide, is one example of such a company.
• StarCoin allows artists to split 50/50 with a record label.
• The NFT Marketplace taxes generate the funds.

NFTs — non-fungible tokens of digital content linked to the blockchain are shaking up the music industry. You can have NFTs in any form as long they’re digital. NFTs have a unique feature: the token it attaches serves as an authentication certificate proving ownership. An NFT is your sole ownership and cannot be duplicated. NFTs can be easily identified by the public blockchain. It is possible to identify authentic NFTs and distinguish between duplicates. Although authentic digital NFTs can be shared and duplicated, the ownership rights to the token-linked NFT are exclusive to their owner.

This innovative technology has already had a significant impact on the music industry. Here’s how:

Artists with Additional Income streams

NFTs offer artists extra income streams and sometimes significant income streams. Numerous musicians such as Ozuna, Steve Aoki and Kings of Leon have earned millions of dollars from NFTs. While NFTs are new to the scene, some of the world’s most creative and innovative artists have jumped on the opportunity to diversify their income streams from them. These flaws are often more beneficial to record labels and streaming platforms than the artists. Alesso — a world-renowned Swedish DJ has said that if you release a song on a streaming platform like Spotify (NYSE:) or iTunes, “if it’s not a worldwide hit, you don’t gain any real money out of it”, adding that cryptocurrency “could save a lot of people’s careers, making money from their own art”. He’s right. Artists make an average of $.0006 per stream through traditional streaming services. That means they’ll only make $600 through a song that has 1 million streams. Seems unfair right?

It’s no surprise that artists are finding creative ways to make income through NFTs. Numerous artists have released exclusive video, song, album, concert tickets, fan clubs memberships and digital art in NFT format that can be purchased by fans through cryptocurrency like and. This allows the artist to decide whether the NFT is ultra-exclusive, by either selling only one copy or selling hundreds. Steve Aoki purchased one NFT digital artwork for $888,888.88. A streaming artist would require 1.48 billion streams to earn that amount.

Celebrities’ fans can connect with them better

Artists and fans can now connect with NFTs like never before. In March, Post Malone announced that he would make an NFT available for sale which would enable the owner to play beerpong against him. You don’t have to collect NFTs digitally. These NFTs could also unlock exclusive encounters with artists. Fyooz is one company that focuses on creating memorable experiences for fans through the use of artists. Other companies, like Dropper, allow fans to compete for celebrities’ NFT collectibles, with top fans being able to unlock experiences with celebrities. The blockchain technology behind NFTs allows celebrities to earn 100 percent of their revenue from these fan-celebrity experience sales. This is one reason why NFTs are so popular. A third party could not take any of these funds, but there is no need to.

For the Better, Change Your Record-signing

A key aspect of how the NFTs influence the music business is the provision crypto-backed records labels. These record labels allow artists to earn more from album sales than traditional label arrangements. StarCoin, the first cryptocurrency-backed record company in the world, is an example of one such company. StarCoin permits a split of 50/50 between artists and record labels. In today’s music industry, artists typically only accrue 10-20% of the profit generated from their album sales, with a 20/80 or 10/90 split favouring the record label being the most common setup. Traditionally, when a record label signs an artist, it gives an artist a loan or “advance” to create an album. Artists don’t generate any personal profit from their album sales until they’ve paid back the loan. StarCoin doesn’t make artists indebted. Artists can generate money through the taxes collected on the NFT marketplace. The NFT marketplace is changing the music business and it’s definitely changing for celebrities as well as fans.

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