The best music service with blockchain technology

Streaming music services have more than 400 million subscribers worldwide and generated more than $13 billion in revenue last year. But critics of the industry argue that artists are unfairly compensated for their work, and both musicians and politicians say artists and songwriters "are not being paid enough."

This is where Audius comes in. It is a cryptocurrency-based music sharing and distribution protocol that aims to give artists more power over the marketing of their music and allow them to connect directly with fans.

Audius, one of the largest non-financial cryptocurrency applications, is run by an open source community of artists, fans, and developers. In July 2021 it surpassed 5.3 million users, up from 2.9 million in January 2021, and in April 2021 users listened to tracks 7.5 million times-the busiest month so far for Audius.

It is powered by AUDIO, the protocol's governance token, which has a market capitalization of $1.2 billion as of August 2021.

What makes this project different from all other streaming music platforms?

What is Audius?

Audius, founded in 2018, is a decentralized music streaming service with a social networking component. It allows artists to upload their songs to the app and connects fans directly with artists and new music exclusively.

Technically, it is a blockchain protocol that allows artists to create unalterable, timed recordings of their creative works, secured by a decentralized network of node operators.

Originally built on the POA Network, a sidechain of Ethereum, it has since moved part of its service to the Solana blockchain. Developers can create their own Audius-based applications, giving them access to a unique audio catalog.

Audius launched its Mainnet service in October 2020 with a concert broadcast live by deadmau5 and RAC.

But unlike most other blockchain projects, it does not suffer from the problem of being so technical that it automatically leaves out anyone not too familiar with cryptocurrencies. "Users will not use our offering if it is much harder to use than Google, Facebook, SoundCloud, Steam or anything else," co-founder Roneil Rumburg told Decrypt in 2019.

In 2018, Audius received $5 million in investment capital from venture capital firms General Catalyst, Lightspeed and Pantera Capital, as well as $1.25 million from Binance Labs, the venture arm of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange platform by volume.

How does Audius work?

Audius works like a music cooperative, with the token governing incentives among the three groups that make up the network: node operators, artists, and fans.

Being blockchain-based, Audius operates through a decentralized network of nodes that host content (content nodes) and index it (discovery nodes).

And as a blockchain project, it naturally has a cryptocurrency.

The Audius network is powered by the Audius Ethereum ERC-20 (AUDIO) token, which performs three functions:

Network security - node operators block tokens to manage a node and receive network rewards in return.

Exclusive features - artists get premium features by blocking the token, such as displaying NFT cryptocurrency collectibles on the website.

Governance - Blockchain tokens are required to vote on all proposals that make changes to the code and the network in general.

However, no knowledge of blockchain or cryptocurrencies is required to participate in Audius, which is part of the reason for its popularity among people outside the cryptocurrency community.

The platform automatically rewards certain performances with AUDIUS tokens: the 5 best songs of the week, the 5 best playlists, the 10 best apps in the API, or uploads from people with verified Twitter or Instagram accounts.

From time to time, the protocol also releases generous amounts of AUDIO tokens, based on a formula that takes into account not only the number of listeners but also the artist's social engagement. As of October 2020, the service has distributed a total of 50 million AUDIO tokens to 10,000 artists and platform users.