Music News

Musicoin working on new app, speaker to further benefit musicians

A blockchain devised explicitly for musicians is getting ready to launch a new app to make paying artists even easier.

Muiscoin, launched in 2017, allows listeners to stream music free of charge and gives them the option to pay whatever they want, from pennies to dollars, when the mood strikes them.  When payments are made, the money goes directly and immediately to the artist, no muss, no fuss.

But even if fans don’t pay anything, artists are guaranteed payment for their songs, thanks to a universal basic income, “an economic model to ensure each contributor to the platform is fairly rewarded in proportion to their contribution,” Musicoin’s website says. “In Musicoin’s context, a UBI pool is created to secure musicians’ income from PPP (pay per play) on the platform, at a fixed rate that is fair, uninfluenced by market forces and higher than that of any other competing streaming platforms,” including Spotify, Tidal, iTunes and others.

The new app, on track to be released later this year, promises to make it even easier for musicians and fans to interact from just about anywhere.

“Along with traditional functionality (artist/song/genre browsing, playlist generation and recommendations based on listening habits) the app also features the Musicoin’s famous Clap functionality,” the company says. “With the push of a button, listeners have the ability to voluntarily ‘tip’ their favorite artists additional Musicoin, the platform’s proprietary cryptocurrency.”

New on the app will be a “Gig” feature, helping fans find tour dates and buy tickets for performances by Musicoin artists in their town. It also includes an optional push notification feature.

Musicoin is gaining traction among those who follow bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain trends. It’s been praised for an ad-free experience that’s also free for fans to utilize the platform. “Underlying the Musicoin system is share-ism. It’s the belief that the content creator should be rewarded the most for creating and sharing his work. That compensation should increase in proportion to their activity on the platform,” writes Sherman Lee at Forbes.

Musicoin is also teaming up with ROCKI to develop Volareo, which claims to be the world’s first blockchain-enabled music speaker. It’s like Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Assistant but more specialized, helping musicians make money for their work. Much like the app that’s in development, artists are earning a guaranteed income, but instead of clicking a button to tip an artist, using Volareo, musicians get a tip every time someone applauds their music.

Amber Healy

I write about music policy and lawsuits because they're endlessly fascinating.

Amber Healy has 516 posts and counting. See all posts by Amber Healy

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