Audius — The Blockchain-Based Music Platform

Blockchain technology has slowly been developing multiple use-cases, throughout a wide array of platforms and professional industries. From graphic designers niching into NFTs and investors getting the opportunity to store their savings on digital assets, now the music industry has a brand-new alternative to create and produce their content.

So let’s take a look at AUDIUS, and the $AUDIO token which is going to completely revolutionize the music industry as we move towards Web3 implementation in 2022.

The problem with the music industry

The 21st century has seen a huge shift in the music industry. Unlike the mainstream performers of the 80s and the 90s like Queen, MJ or even the Beatles, creating music was a complex process. You needed a team of producers and audio creators, to work together using the best quality music software at an established studio. But in 2021, anyone can create hits from their bedroom with limited and inexpensive software.

The AUDIUS white paper states that out of a normal $43 billion that the music business creates yearly, just 12% of the entire revenue goes directly to the artists. On top of the restricted cut they get, artists don’t have a lot of command and control over the way that the music is distributed to the outside world.

However advanced music and web-based features by means of stages like Spotify and Apple music have diminished the effect of brokers as far as retail distribution, but they still particularly play a significant part to play and are related with the greatest music craftsmen on the planet.

AUDIUS, a blockchain-based platform that looks to connect artists to the fans, by removing the middlemen such as producers and distributors that have been taking a huge chunk of the pie of this multi-billion dollar industry.

Introducing AUDIUS

In response to this problem is AUDIUS — a decentralized music streaming protocol that uses public blockchain infrastructure. By giving artists more control over the art they create, AUDIUS is linking the blockchain world with music streaming. The music on AUDIUS is distributed free of charge to the general public. This platform also takes no cut from the artists, which is much higher than the mere 12% of revenue artists currently make whilst working with producers, agents and distributors.

How does AUDIUS work?

AUDIUS is a layer 2 blockchain protocol which was initially built on the Ethereum sidechain. Since Ethereum’s network has been facing continuous problems related to high gas fees and limited transaction throughput which limits scalability, AUDIUS decided to change its network.

Since the demand for streaming content has been increasing on AUDIUS network, they have switched to the Solana blockchain as of 2020 to enhance their performance and growth. Solana is a much faster blockchain and has the ability to make 75,000 transactions a second — which works well to increase scalability on AUDIUS as well.

Despite Web3 still pretty much in its growth phase, AUDIUS has managed to attract 6 million monthly listeners, including 100,000 artists who will be sharing their music using the platform. Another unique trait of this blockchain centric platform is their native token, AUDIO, which is used as a governance token and a monetary method that provides financial benefits to users along with the artists.

AUDIO Token

The AUDIO token is the local crypto token for the AUDIUS network. Although AUDIUS decided to shift to the Solana network to increase scalability, the token still exists on the Ethereum blockchain. AUDIO is an ERC-20 governance token, which plays a major role since it can be used by stakers to vote on proposals related to network changes and upgrades. Using AUDIO coins, users have the opportunity to gain exclusive features as well.

Benefits of using AUDIO

Unlike the traditional channels of the music industry, AUDIUS tracks the artists on different parameters. The company tracks the artists listening hours, activity and their overall engagement on the AUDIUS platform.

On the other hand, users can contribute as well. Just like we have seen with other blockchains, users are an important stakeholder that contribute to the networks. The main benefit comes from staking, which allows users to contribute to the safety and security of AUDIUS, after staking a particular amount of AUDIO tokens. In return for operating the platform, users are rewarded with the native token, depending on the initial staking amount in the first place.

For the users, the AUDIO token also allows fans and artists to unlock exclusive features on the platform.

Tokenomics and price

AUDIO has a total max supply of just over 1 billion tokens, with over 50% of those currently circulating in the markets. The current market price of $AUDIO is $1.67 at the end of 2021, which is a total market cap of $850 million, according to Coinmarketcap.

Over the period of 1-year, AUDUS networks native token has given great returns to investors. From a price of just $0.15 at the start of 2021, the token sky-rocketed to $4 in just the first quarter of the year. This would have given investors an astronomical return of 26x or 2600%. Although since the highs of $4, the price has corrected by more than 50%, but it still remains as a great opportunity.

This is because the current market rank is only 101 for AUDIS, which means that with its growing market cap and user adoption numbers, it can steadily rise up in price once more artists and users join the network. The next huge factor that can help raise the price of AUDIO is its limited market cap. Bitcoin is worth over $45,000 due to many investors believing it to be a hedge against inflation — since more cannot be minted as compared to fiat currency — the value will only increase and demand will never saturate. The same principle will work for AUDIUS once it successfully manages to scale its network. With more people flighting to purchase a limited number of AUDIO tokens, the price will head upwards.

Future of AUDIUS in Web3

As the world of blockchain technology is moving the digital world towards Web3, the everyday services that exist on Web2.0 are slowly going to be shifting towards blockchains. First we moved from fait currency to blockchain currency like Bitcoin, then we have developed blockchain technology and decentralized finance through smart contracts and DeFi protocols and now even art is being made on blockchains.

Slowly, popular services like social media, virtual reality and music are headed towards this line, with countless music industry names like Post Malone, Snoop Dogg, Drake and many others have started using blockchain to publish their music materials and services.

AUDIUS is one such network which is going to give artists more control over their content and revenue, while users have the opportunity to take part and gain benefits themselves. The world of blockchain technology is going to make the music world enter the Web3 space, but the real question is — Will AUDIUS be able to become the hub that will host these music streaming services ? Let us know in the comments section below !