gm music fans,
I get really excited about Web3 when it unlocks completely new behaviours and rewards — especially in music which is desperate for new models.
One of the most promising in the music space is “curator rewards” on Sound.xyz and Zora, where music fans can earn a cut of sales for sharing music they love.
This week, I’m diving deeper into this topic after Sound announced they are doubling curator rewards for seven days. We’ll also cover the biggest stories and drops of the week. Let’s get into it.
Ziggy Ziggy Season 3 is powered by Beatport.io.
Beatport.io is lining up an epic party in Lisbon to celebrate the launch of Kinship — the second drop on the platform — by HE.SHE.THEY, a diverse club night and record label. The event takes place on November 16th to coincide with the Web Summit conference.
Headline story
Make money by sharing music in Web3
Music platform Sound.xyz has doubled its curator rewards program this week to celebrate the launch of a new social feed.
Every time you share music on Sound’s social feed, playlists or social media, you get a cut of sales if someone collects music through your recommendation.
Zora also launched a similar rewards system for curators.
This is a really powerful new incentive that has never existed for music before. Most importantly, it rewards people for doing something they already do for free - sharing music!
Everyone sends music to their friends. Everyone makes playlists. Music blogs have existed since the earliest days of the internet. Now this natural behaviour can be rewarded.
Crypto is powerful at aligning incentives.
Sound curator rewards have already generated 14,000 referrals, resulting in 50,000 sales. We’re a long way out yet, but I can start to picture a future where blogs and music curators can make a living by sharing quality music.
Disclaimer: I’m a contributor at Sound and helped work on the new social feed.
Onchain music roundup
Steve Aoki announces STEPN collab - The DJ has partnered with STEPN (a “walk-to-earn” crypto app on Solana) on a collection of 300 digital sneakers, priced at $3,500 each. (Read more).
Audius direct payments - Web3 music streaming platform Audius partners with DistroKid and enables direct-to-artist payments. (Read more).
Ticketmaster issues Avenged Sevenfold digital ticket stubs - Metal band A7X has partnered with Ticketmaster to send NFTs to everyone who attended shows this summer. They’re part of a bigger points system coming soon. (Read more).
Record label puts its entire catalog onchain - Independent label Lucid Haus has built a custom site (on top of Zora) and made its entire catalog collectible. (Read more).
Latasha sells music video for $15k - Rapper Latasha sold a music video NFT for $15k on AVAX. (Read more).
Zooming out: broader Web3 news we’re watching
Solana leads market-wide rally. (Read more)
a16z plans a new $3.4 billion crypto fund. (Read more).
UK aims to be a “crypto hub” (Read more).
Elon Musk weighs in on NFTs on Joe Rogan. (Read more).
Sam Bankman Fried trial comes to an end, jury to deliberate on verdict today. (Read more).
SocialFi hype dries up. (Read more).
Biggest drops of the week
LUCID HAUS ROSTER
Lucid Haus is a record label and home of “timeless, post-genre Black music.” They just dropped their entire catalog on a custom site powered by Zora. You can stream and mint songs, videos and full albums all via the website. It’s a very cool vision for the future. (Collect here).
Acutek - Okay Okay
Acutek is a Scottish techno producer who has already hit the top of the Beatport charts in Web2. He shows a more mellow side this week with Okay Okay — a track that uses samples from Web3 artists Sara Phillips and Sound of Fractures.
Thanks for reading!
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Ziggy Ziggy Music Season 2 is supported by Beatport.io and Spinamp.
Disclaimers: We may own NFTs mentioned in this article, have previous or current contracts with companies mentioned and may earn referral income from links to music NFTs. This newsletter is purely informational and should not be considered financial advice. Nothing in this content should be considered a recommendation to buy a particular NFT, only an expression of our opinion.