Music stars to release branded Bitcoin-style tokens

Estonia – 22nd October 2018: Budding music artists now have a new route to wealth, stardom and a loyal, evangelical fanbase, it was announced today – thanks to token-generating blockchain technology called Fanbase.

The new Fanbase decentralised application (dApp) is set to bring musicians and their fans closer than ever before, by allowing artists to share exclusive content directly with their audience, while rewarding fans for being active promoters and helping the artist to build their fanbase. Access to exclusive content and the ability to interact directly with an artist will be via different membership levels based on the amount of tokens a fan holds for a particular artist.

Fanbase is the first dApp to be built on Lightstreams, a blockchain privacy platform built by former Goldman Sachs software engineer, Michael Smolenski whose award-winning protocol for smart contract confidentiality, called Permissioned Blocks; is now at the heart Lightstreams — having won a Blockchain Hackathon award at Consensus 2017.

As well as enabling artists to control access to their content, Fanbase has been hailed as a much needed development by Label founder and music producer Happy Walters, who has managed and published artists such as Korn, Incubus, 30 Seconds to Mars and more.

“Having spent more than 20 years discovering, producing and distributing the very best emerging talent, Fanbase brings a much needed new form of distribution and copyright for artists. But what is more powerful is what Fanbase can do to enable interaction between artists and their fans,” comments Walters.

Bonding curve technology is being harnessed by Fanbase to allow any artist to launch a smart contract that will mint continuously their own tokens. Ariana Grande might launch the Aria token, for example. The first fan buys an Aria token, by depositing some money into the contract, which issues the first token. Then another fan buys, and another and so on. Each time a fan pays a slightly higher cost per token until a maximum price is reached, and that higher cost is pre-programmed into the smart contract based on a pricing curve, so there is complete transparency about how the model works, and the price remains affordable for all.

 

The smart contract continues to mint Aria coins in response to demand, unlike other token models that usually have a set supply of tokens issued at a particular date. At any time, someone can cash out of the Aria token and the more fans she has at the time holding the Aria token the higher the exchange rate will be. Selling a token causes the supply to decrease.

Ariana Grande incentivises uptake of the Aria token by offering VIP access, content downloads, direct communication with fans, discounted tickets, through to the right to vote and provide input on career decisions such as where the star should perform next.

Michael Smolenski, CEO of Lightstreams, says: “Fanbase will allow established bands and solo musicians to build closer relationships with their community of fans. Additionally, it will allow emerging artists to have greater exposure and capability to fund their music career.  Fans will be able to directly support and interact with their favourite musicians – and in turn receive fan-only benefits such as limited/early release music and VIP performance passes.”

Fanbase is also in talks to link up with music streaming platforms to offer privileged downloads for official fans.

Scott Cohen, Founder & VP, International THE ORCHARD Distribution Done Right, says: “With the dominance of streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon and the social platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, there is a greater need for the music industry to find new ways to increase exposure for artists, interaction with fans and create additional revenue streams.  As we transition to the post-social age, Fanbase will provide a vibrant social platform that will accomplish these things in harmony with the existing revenue models.”

The Alpha version of Fanbase will be launched at the end of 2018.