Combining Music & Digital Art with DeFi

Updated June 23, 2022 at 9:10 pm

News

Can a new blockchain project disrupt the music industry and give more power to creative? We take a deep dive into the Husl.io and its plans to do just that.

The Music Industry

According to one report, the music industry contributes $170 billion to US GDP annually and supports 2.5 million jobs across the nation in core music activities like recording, streaming, and live performances. This also includes closely allied fields like travel, retail, and marketing. In terms of exports, music generates $9.1 billion in foreign sales annually. Not just that, but for every dollar created by music activities, an additional fifty cents is created in associated business or fields, showing how much of a powerhouse the music industry is.

However, only 12% of the global music industry’s income goes to the artists, writers, producers and other creatives. The lions’ share – about 88% of this revenue in the music industry goes to lawyers, executives, distributors, streaming platforms and big corporations.

The Husl.io: Leveraging Blockchain

The Husl.io brings a full-stack technology solution to the music industry by leveraging two elements of blockchain technology – DeFi and NFTs. Using these blockchain technologies, they are set to radically reorganize the entire international music economy and prioritize the industry’s key players: the creatives and the fans.

DeFi applications aim to replace traditional financial systems with a trustless computer network. DeFi applications are not controlled by a central point-of-control governing over the entire system. Through DeFi lending, users can lend out cryptocurrency, like a traditional bank does with fiat currency, and earn interest as a lender at a much higher rate than the near 0% interest offered by banks. Two of the first use cases of DeFi applications include borrowing and lending. However, there are many more increasingly complex options too, such as becoming a liquidity provider to a decentralized exchange.

NFTs or non-fungible tokens are unique tokens on the blockchain that prove ownership and history on a permanent, immutable, decentralized and secure database.

Independent digital artists have championed the use of NFTs to skip the legacy middleman and the industry gatekeepers and bring their works to the marketplace.

The top Ethereum NFT marketplace for digital art, OpenSea, has seen exponential growth with well over $3 billion dollars in NFT sales in the past month. This is more than the entire NFT space in the half of 2021. Can this same success translate over into the music industry

The Husl.io Ecosystem at a Glance

Here is how the Husl.io ecosystem works to leverage these:

An everyday user in Boston is supposed to be working on their laptop, but instead they are getting distracted scrolling through up-and-coming artists on a platform that closely resembles Spotify or YouTube Music. Users will see the artists’ names, album artwork, photos and bios next to their new and top releases. The user is having a great time because there’s something addictive about this young DJ from Ibiza that they can’t get out of their head. Her beats are innovative, hypnotic and addicting. The user has been playing her latest track on a loop to get through the day. They favorite the song, text it to a few friends who share their taste in music and follow the artist on Twitter, but that’s not enough.

After listening to the artist, the feeling is more than that; they want to see what she does next. The user has a hunch that she’s going places and they want to be one of the people who gets her there. Now they will be able to.

They just click on her profile and an unreleased track packaged as a non-fungible token, or NFT. The unique encrypted file that will belong only to the user purchasing it. When they buy the song using Ether they gain ownership of the artist’s unreleased track, but they also become a stakeholder in that artist’s career. The purchase isn’t a donation, and it doesn’t just fund her career’s growth — her career’s growth increases the value of the purchase. When her following expands, when her tracks top charts, when her face appears in music publications, that NFT’s value also grows. This way, music NFTs connect fans and artists like never before, solidifying the bond between listeners and musicians.

Democratic finance may be geared for one of its biggest W’s yet with the Husl.io. The relationship between creator and consumer is a win-win: consumers finance the very projects that they both want to consume and from which they will profit. With The Husl.io, fans and investors can invest in the production of their favorite song, ones they haven’t even heard yet.

A blockchain economy is administered democratically, by the decisions of individuals. It does not give advantages to lobbyists, billionaires and politicians printing money to suit their needs, like legacy governance systems.

An artist’s success won’t be determined by a handful of wealthy music executives bankrolling their pet projects and burying emerging talents they don’t approve of. The Husl is bringing the democracy of money and the world of music together to let fans contribute to the artists they believe in.