My music NFT predictions for 2024
Crypto will come back strong, what about music nfts?
gm music fans,
Happy new year! Let’s kick things off with some predictions about music and its place in web3 over the next 12 months.
I’ll start out with some objective predictions based on how I think the space and crypto is trending right now. At the end I’ve also added some topics that I hope grow stronger this year. Let’s get into it!
First half of the year
1. Something on Solana breaks out, surprising everyone
Everyone wrote off Solana for the last year but the ecosystem has been building fast and I think it will continue to take people by surprise.
The biggest leap forward on Sol will be free NFTs. Go check out DRiP Haus if you haven’t already. It’s an NFT platform where you subscribe to an artist or creator, then get NFTs airdropped to you for free every week. Unlike ETH, there’s no gas fees or platform fees so it’s a much easier onboarding experience for new people.
Distributing NFTs at scale like this is only really possible on Solana due to the speed and throughput of the network combined with NFT compression. DRiP is mostly based around artwork, but I think a similar model could quickly catch fire for music. If it does, it will catch out a lot of builders, artists and collectors who’ve been building mainly on Ethereum.
2. Continued free/cheap mints on Ethereum L2s
The trend towards low-cost and free NFTs will likely continue in the first half of the year. Ethereum layer 2s like BASE and Optimism are incentivized to bring as many people onchain as possible, so we’ll continue to see high-volume, accessible mints to capture new users, especially as we haven’t seen the demand or value proposition for high-price editions come back yet.
3. New products built around fan data rather than pure collectibles
Over the last two years, we’ve amassed a huge amount of collecting activity onchain. I think we’ll start to see new products emerge that are solely built around managing your fan data onchain and tracking your biggest supporters across different platforms. Bello is a great early example of this.
Second half of the year (→ early 2025)
1. Limited editions and 1/1s come back
I’m expecting a strong year for crypto which will generate a wealth effect for crypto-natives later in the year. Historically that wealth flows into NFTs.
The newly crypto rich will want to flex with luxury NFTs and I think *some* music NFTs will begin to establish themselves as a “blue chip” store of value — similar to how digital art established itself in the last cycle. Rare 1/1s and exclusive editions of 25-100 at relatively high prices could make a comeback in this scenario.
2. Something mainstream starts to gain traction
I think something like a “Topshots” for music could appear towards the middle of the year. It’s probably powered by free NFTs that lets you signal your music taste via Spotify or something similar.
3. Influencers come back, cash grabs begin
If these predictions are correct, then music NFTs are going to get swept up in another hype cycle towards the end of the year (maybe early 2025). It will attract bigger influencers, bigger artists and the first return of cash grabs.
Hopes and wishes
I also wanted to throw in some things I hope happen in the next year. I’m less sure about these coming to fruition but I will be personally working towards making them happen.
1. Music as streetwear / luxury / art
I’m a huge advocate for a free market for music, which means there’s no right answer about price or supply but instead different sectors of music. We should see a sector of music that is promoted and sold as luxury. There should be a music brand that drops like “streetwear” … and every other market sector in between.
We’ll move forward when music is no longer a “one size fits all” Spotify model but lots of different markets, sectors, pricing and audiences.
2. We get a breakout artist from the underground onchain music scene
It would make my whole year to see someone like Reo Cragun, TK, Sara Phillips, Annika Rose, Heno, Latasha, Iman Europe, Beachcrimes, Lyrah, Daniel Allan or any of the other artists who’ve show up every day and push the space forward break out into the mainstream.
3. Onchain communities and curators have a moment
Over the last 18 months, we’ve seen more communities emerge around the onchain music world. It reminds me of the early blog culture around Soundcloud. I’m optimistic we see some of these communities have a bigger impact on music culture at large in terms of elevating and even breaking new music. Platforms like Sound.xyz are putting a huge focus on curators through rewards and I think this could attract a new audience.
4. More crypto-native experiments
I’d love to see more experiments from deep within crypto culture using CC0, fully onchain music, or maybe something novel and unique with AI/generative music.
Some bearish predictions
1. NFTs tied to streaming royalties go quiet (in the US)
This was probably the biggest talking-point of music NFTs for the traditional music industry. Unfortunately, there’s obviously some regulatory issues at play here in the US. Leading platform Royal hasn’t issued a release in over six months, while European platform Anotherblock now geo-blocks US users.
2. The Web2.5 sales model won’t find much traction
A lot of platforms have tried to hide the crypto rails and make themselves more appealing to a mainstream audience by selling NFTs as “digital collectibles.” I think unfortunately there’s still no product-market-fit in this category. It doesn’t appeal to crypto-native collectors while the incentives aren’t strong enough to attract the average music fan. I fear they continue to get stuck this year.
3. Socialfi / tradable social tokens don’t click
I haven’t discovered a socialfi platform that moves the needle for musicians yet, and I don’t think “betting” on an artist via a social token is a sustainable model at all. I think tokens as fundraising (such as Black Dave Token and Sound of Fractures Token) could see more interest though.
Some other perspectives?
Black Dave had a great tweet which captured predictions from lots of artists and builders in the space. (Read here).
Iman Europe listed out 20 predictions for music nfts in 2024.
Thanks for reading!
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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.
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