Amusician friend of mine wrote on her Twitter recently: “People are going to make me go nuts talking about NFTs but I just don’t get what that is!” What was really surprising though wasn’t that she didn’t yet know about NFTs but that people in her comment sections who apparently knew what they were, tried to discourage her saying that the NFTs didn’t make sense for musicians. Well, this is a post to talk about why non-fungible tokens can indeed be an option full of hope for musicians and other digital creators.
What's the purpose behind Non-fungible tokens?
People usually think that non-fungible tokens were specially designed to sell pieces of art in the form of digital images, such as paintings, portraits, designs, etc. But they are wrong! NFTs transform digital works and other collectibles into one-of-a-kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade on the blockchain, this statement alone means that the possibilities behind the creation of non-fungible tokens are huge.
Basically, non-fungible tokens or NFTs are just that: pieces of digital content linked to the blockchain. But even though they are in the blockchain, they are not necessarily like other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or ether since those assets are fungible, meaning they can be replaced or exchanged with another identical one of the same value, much like a dollar bill or any fiat currency of similar value in the real world.
However NFTs are one of a kind, unique, and not mutually interchangeable, their existence itself is like that of a human being, there cannot be two of them that are the same in the whole world.
Can musicians benefit from NFTs?
But why would NFT’s benefit digital creators and especially incentive music initiatives?
We have to start by saying that music is and can be a digital creation. Nowadays and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the musical content consumed by the massive spectators is in the form of digital sound and not a live session or performance in a concert hall. Going further, even the music performances in renowned concert halls are being transmitted through streaming platforms and consumed massively through the internet as never before. Before nobody would have thought that someone would pay an opera ticket to go and sit on their computers to see the premiere.
Because music is also a digital asset, and because they are compositions created by a unique mind, just like any digital piece of art, it can become a non-fungible token. Tokens now are taking a turn to give people the possibility of becoming the true owners of their works, and blockchain technology is providing the base and the fundamentals to allow everybody to participate.
The world of tokens is growing
As for today, and while other platforms continue to develop in other to provide more specific features to help musicians and musical indicatives of all kinds, there are platforms such as MintMe that can allow any digital creator to become the owner of their own tokens, and just as non-fungible tokens, the tokens they create can be sold, exchanged or used to pay for exclusive products such as songs, compositions, a jingle or commercial song, or simply to help creators reward the community that supported them in an early stage.
Token creation and crowdfunding through the blockchain are just getting started and the possibilities are increasing day by day. People are starting to understand what it means and the interest has also increased towards the purchase and support of digital creations from independent creators. But more so because, as the world becomes more digital, people are looking for ways to securely diversify their valuable assets and holdings with blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens can make this happen.