The future of music NFTS is here

Music NFTs are one of the fastest-growing branches within the NFT realm. If you’ve been closely following NFT news, you surely came across a wide range of original, bold, creative, and even downright crazy NFT drops.

From memes to bored apes, to artwork signed by Stan Lee—there’s no end to the ways in which NFTs can be applied, dropped, and promoted. Of course, NFTs aren’t limited to digital art. It’s fair game for any digital asset, including music.

The Kings of Leon was the first band to release an album as an NFT, featuring tokens that unlock special perks such as special albums, limited-edition vinyl, exclusive art, and front row seats to future concerts—for life.

When NFT’s become musical, and profitable

According to an article on CoinDesk, “Bajan rapper Haleek Maul made $226,800 in music NFT sales on Catalog, while his annualized Spotify earnings are just $178.” Maul went on to tell CoinDest that he “…made 81 ETH from five Catalog sales, which at the time was worth more than $250,000.”

The element of profitability doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to the creators themselves. The holders can also get a piece of the pie, as in the case of UK-based FRESHA Records.

FRESHA Records is the combined entity of legendary UK 90’s dance labels, Fresh and Freskanova Records, to celebrate 30 years of dance hits. On March 25, the combined entity will release a collection of royalty-share (LDA) NFTs, dubbed 90’s NOW, based on some of the labels’ all-time biggest chart and club hits.

FRESHA will tokenize 10 classic singles and 2 albums as NFTs for the collection on the OpenSea marketplace, including some of the labels’ all-time biggest hits. 

Holders of the NFTs will be entitled to a 10-year royalty share of the proceeds generated from the source song or album, earned at an annual rate of 15% net prorated all label income and label share, excluding publishing.

The future of music NFTs

This just might be the dawn of a new era in the NFT space, serving as a win-win for everyone in the music industry, from labels to artists, to holders.

It’s safe to say that music NFTs have come a long way since their early days, which mainly consisted of an underground following made up of producers, DJs, and other players in the music industry itself.

It has gone on to become a transformative force, which also creates dialogue as it unites each respective fanbase on Discord who shares the same passion. As stated in TIME magazine, “Before, your fanbase couldn’t be in the label meetings with you. But now we all are the label together.”

There is still plenty of room for disruption for music NFTs because even remixes can be incentivized as an upgradable NFT.

According to the digital agency Blue Manakin, “Upgradable NFTs open the possibility of more efficient distribution of music, that does not have to go through intermediaries and that facilitates the creation of exclusive material, collaborations, and remixes, without the legal implications that often arise.”  

Considering all the opportunities that have yet to be tapped, we have barely scratched the surface of the potential of music NFTs.