Why do people buy music NFTs (and what return do they expect)?
+ Soulja Boy flop and 5 Web3 music stories this week
gm music fans,
This week brought us another fumbled celebrity NFT drop courtesy of Soulja Boy and a huge $5 million milestone for leading music platform Sound.xyz. First though…
Why do collectors buy music NFTs?
A new study from Water & Music goes deep into the psychology of music collectors. They interviewed 22 collectors to find out why they buy music NFTs and their expectations. It’s easily the best study I’ve read on the topic so I thought I’d summarise some of it below.
Where do music collectors come from?
Web3 native - Most collectors were already experimenting in defi, NFTs or crypto before discovering music NFTs.
Web2 music fans - A small number were onboarded through traditional music fanbases (like Muse or Avenged Sevenfold).
What’s the most important factor in collecting a music NFT?
The music.
The story of the artist (“hearing them talk about their journey”)
Proof of being early as a fan.
What about utility?
‘Utility’ is not a big driving factor for most collectors.
So what do collectors ‘expect’ in terms of return?
Most have little or no expectations from the artist.
Music is enough and anything else is a benefit.
Being early matters and some collectors believe the NFT may be more valuable in the future.
Connection with the artist does matter…
Most collectors also said they appreciate a small effort to engage and acknowledge (thank you, retweets, likes etc.)
Being part of the community is important to some collectors (group chats and Discords).
I highly recommend subscribing to Water & Music and reading the full report with interview quotes and data included.
News roundup
1. Sound.xyz hits $5m paid to artists 💸
Leading Web3 music platform Sound.xyz has now facilitated $5 million paid directly to artists since launching in December 2021.
2. Souljaboy drops an NFT collection… then gets delisted 🤦♂️
Rapper Soulja Boy launched 500 NFTs that give early access to his upcoming video game. It sold out in 2 hours… then got delisted by OpenSea because the artwork featured a Ferrari logo. The collection reappeared later… without the copyrighted logo.
3. A guide to all NFTNYC music events 📍
HiFi Labs has put together a map of all the big music events at NFTNYC this year. Shout out Jade at HiFi for putting this together.
4. List3nDAO launches 🎧
List3n is a music collective that will provide 1 ETH funding to a musician every month. DAO members will also get airdropped free music NFTs monthly. The project started minting this week at 0.08 ETH each.
5. Builders keep building 🚢
Catalog introduces splits using 0xSplits.
Sound.xyz launches email signup to streamline onboarding.
Zora launches ‘explore’ page.
Zora launches secondary purchases in one click.
Music NFTs pick up pace on Lens Protocol
Lens’ native music platform Beats changes its name to Riff.
FutureTape launches instant playlists for Mirror posts that feature embeds.
Thanks for reading!
If you found this useful, please forward to your friends. Let me know what stories I missed by hitting me up on Twitter.