Prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, for example, pledged a long-term, multibillion-dollar commitment to the Web3 industry in May, announcing that it had raised $4.5 billion to support Web3 startups, bringing its total crypto/web3 funds raised to more than $7.6 billion.
In ablog post Announcing the news, Chris Dixon, who runs a16z Crypto, wrote that the firm believes “we are now entering the golden age of web3”.
Following Andreessen Horowitz’s announcement,Binance Labsthe venture capital and incubation arm of Binance, announced its own $500 million Web3 investment fund, backed by institutional investors like DST Global Partners and Breyer Capital.
To put the value of Binance and a16z combined $5 billion in context for you, $5 billion is theamount of money MBW estimates were spent on catalog acquisitions throughout 2021.
Web3 is also of course becoming more closely tied to the music industry, with major music companies hiring Web3 specialists and investing in Web3 businesses.
With the increase in activity in the space, a question many in the music industry are asking is what a post-Web2 world will look like for music streaming services, with some evento suggest that DSPs are positioned to lead the widespread adoption of Web3.
Indeed, as the music industrydouble On Web3, the optimism around the Web3 sector and future possibilities in the space could be heard from a panel of Web3 experts at the Sandbox Music Summit in London last week.
During the Web3 Music Services panel discussion, Roneil Rumburg, co-founder and CEO of tech startup Audius, who has raised about $10 million for its blockchain-based music streaming service, defined a Web3 music service as a “set of tools that artists can use, [in order] to engage their fans and allow them to have sovereignty over that audience.
He added, “It can mean a number of things, but primarily that the artist is able to exfiltrate their data if they want and use it in different experiences, different products and different contexts.”
Con Raso, co-founder and specialist MD B2B music technology company Tuned Global, cited licensing as one of the biggest challenges for the growth of the Web3 music services industry, but also highlighted opportunities in the space for artists and rights holders, and revealed where the company’s Web3 growth comes from.
raso previouslysaid MBW in April that Tuned Global, which has powered streaming platforms around the world, is accelerating its growth in the web3 space, including NFTs and the metaverse
Speaking at the panel in London, Raso highlighted a growing customer base in emerging markets in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America who use Tuned Global’s licensing and music technology expertise. to power Web3 experience-based services.
“Often [entities in] these markets come to us wanting to put more dollars in the pockets of local artists, rather than all that money going overseas,” Raso explained. “Web3 is a really exciting way for music services to empower the artist.”
Raso added that Tuned Global is launching trials with a few customers in the coming weeks that will allow artists to create NFTs.
“These NFTs can actually enter a Web2 streaming platform and be consumed alongside normal audio,” Raso explained. “And then the revenue will flow back through the smart contract to the rights holders in that space.”
Another point raised by Raso during the discussion is the issue of interoperability as the industry moves to Web3, noting that Tuned Global “sees customers trying to do something in the metaverse, but [working out] how do they turn that experience into a Web2 experience, so people can take it with them throughout the day”.
Regarding the future of Web3 adoption for music uses, Raso also noted that it would be interesting to see how tech companies in the fitness, wellness, and gaming industries — all spaces that need music and in which Tuned Global is active – incorporate Web3 functionality. in their services or translate their activity into a metaverse environment.
“Web3 is a really exciting way for music services to empower the artist.”
Con Raso, Tuned Global
Elsewhere during the discussion, panelists were asked about how token ownership is beginning to “blur the line between fan and investor.”
MBW has been reporting on the development of fans investing in music for some time now, with Justin Blau’s Royal being a prime example of a company that allows fans to invest in music through the sale of fractional music ownership in the form of NFT.
The tokens are also used to allow fans to participate in platforms such as music services, such as the Blockchain music service Audius for example, which claims to be “owned and operated by artists, fans and developers”.
In awhite paper released in October 2020, CEO Roneil Rumburg, explained that “Audius enables artists to distribute and get paid directly by their fans” using a “token economy powered by the Audius platform token ($ AUDIO), third-party stablecoins and token artists”.
During last week’s roundtable, Rumberg explained that “this token is earned and operated by users of the network, whether those who help host content or those who share content.” He added, “All of these behaviors can be adopted to gain some control over the network in the form of the token.”
“It’s scary for people building that fan investor profile, because they have to understand a massive amount of pre-existing regulations.”
Sophie Goosens, Reed Smith
Sophie Goosens, media attorney and partner at Reed Smith law firm, commented on the legal issues surrounding the fan-investor space. gigantic amount of pre-existing regulation. It requires a willingness to learn new things.
Goosens said that “there is definitely a speculative angle right now around NFTs and tokens,” but noted that “if you’re talking about being an investor in the sense that you own, or you’re able to take decisions about a platform via governance tokens, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be watching [buying tokens] speculatively, it just means you are participating. It’s super exciting.The music industry around the world
