What is AUDIUS?

Attention all music lovers and artists! Introducing AUDIUS, a decentralized music streaming platform designed to change the way you stream and listen to music. With a focus on empowering artists and providing them with more control over their work, AUDIUS is revolutionizing the music industry with its innovative use of blockchain technology and token-based economy.

AUDIUS's use of smart contracts allows artists to license their music in a transparent and efficient manner, giving them more control over their revenue. The platform's token-based economy encourages user engagement and support for their favorite artists, providing more equitable revenue distribution.

Decentralization is another key feature of AUDIUS. The platform is run by a network of nodes worldwide, making it secure and resilient. This also gives artists more control over their content, unlike the traditional music streaming models dominated by companies like Spotify and Apple Music.

In addition to empowering artists, AUDIUS is also committed to building a community of music fans and artists who support independent and emerging talent. With tools and resources for artists to share their music and grow their audience and a curated selection of music from various genres and styles, AUDIUS is the ultimate destination for music lovers.

What is an Audius utility token?

An Audius utility token is a digital asset that is used to gain access to the Audius platform's services. The Audius utility token is used to pay for platform services such as music uploading and listening, and it can also be used to vote on platform governance decisions. The Audius utility token is built on blockchain technology because it is a decentralized platform, allowing it to be securely transferred and traded without the need for a central authority.

Audius tokenomics

The Audius token is a utility token used to encourage user participation in the Audius network.

The Audius token serves several critical functions in the network. Artists, for example, can use the token to stake their identity on the network, ensuring that they are the rightful owners of their content. Users can also use the token to vote on governance decisions and gain access to premium content on the platform.

The Audius token also plays an important role in the Audius ecosystem by providing users with an economic incentive to contribute to the network. Users who help to host and maintain the Audius platform's decentralized infrastructure, for example, can earn tokens as a reward. Additionally, through a reward system, users who create and share high-quality content on the platform can earn tokens.

Overall, Audius tokenomics is intended to align the interests of all network participants, from artists to listeners, in order to create a sustainable and equitable ecosystem for music sharing and streaming.

How to buy/acquire Audio token?

You'll need a Metamask wallet and a KuCoin account in order to invest in Audius. From the Google Chrome store, you may open a KuCoin account and install the Metamask wallet. To pay for gas fees, you'll also need to make sure you have Ethereum in your Metamask wallet.

The next step is to buy USDT (Tether), a stablecoin, and then exchange it into AUDIO on the well-known decentralized exchange (DEX) 1inch.

The process

1. Once you've logged in, select Buy Crypto > Credit/Debit Card.
2. Click on your currency next under "I Want to Spend" to continue. To buy USDT, select it from the drop-down menu under "I Want to Buy."
3. Select both your payment method and your payment channel.

Don't panic if the AUDIO tokens don't appear right away; it will take some time for them to reach your Metamask wallet. Make sure to update the "Add Tokens" in your Metamask Wallet, type in AUDIO, and then click on it to view your AUDIO tokens.

Famous artists that use Audius

In addition to well-known musicians like Katty Perry, Nas, Jason Derulo, 3LAU, The Chainsmokers, Push T, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, deadmau5, Diplo, REZZ, and Odesza, Audius features more than 250,000 other artists. There are a lot of fresh musicians on the site who might benefit from the TikTok collaboration by getting more visibility.

What popular music is available on Audius?

Audius was designed specifically with artists in mind, shining a spotlight on them and their work. Because of this, the site places a strong emphasis on discoverability, ensuring that you are constantly presented with new or overlooked artists. In light of this, the portal likely offers music from all genres.

They don't have to compete with bigger musicians for your attention because the site was originally designed for independent musicians. Because of this, it's simpler for them to break through the clutter and be found by music fans who might just be searching for what they have to provide - something new and exciting.

On Audius, finding new music is simple. Just make sure you've already created a profile.

Funding

Over the course of 3 rounds, Audius has collected a total of $13.6M in investment. Their most recent funding was raised on Sep 16, 2021, from a Venture - Series Unknown round.

23 investors are helping to finance Audius. The most recent investors are Multicoin Capital and Jason Derulo.

According to PrivCo, the post-money valuation of Audius as of July 30, 2020, is in the $10M to $50M range.

Other investors include, among others, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchange Ventures, Pantera Capital, and Binance Labs.

How does Audius function?

Three parties make up the Audius ecosystem: musicians, audience, and service providers. The creators are in charge of publishing albums, uploading songs, and interacting with their fans. Fans post content with their connections, stream songs, make playlists and follow musicians. The service providers are in charge of controlling app activity, streaming music, and assisting with network security.

In line with the volume of material they produce on the network, platform users are paid. In addition, the groups participating in the protocol can acquire governance authority by adding value to the Audius ecosystem, which is then distributed among them. Prices and revenues for players must be constant, regular, and transparent, which is another ecosystem-only guiding concept. The platform also intends to eliminate all middlemen and replace them with transparent, verifiable algorithms.

The AUDIO token, together with various artist tokens and third-party stablecoins, powers the Audius ecosystem. Additionally, the platform offers its own decentralized storage options, as well as a ledger for exchanging audio and information. The platform offers a decentralized governance mechanism that gives artists, node administrators, and fans the ability to vote both individually and collectively on protocol updates and changes. In order to access some content, the platform additionally employs a powerful track encryption technique that unlocks upon authentication. Additionally, it boasts a powerful discovery technique for looking for metadata.

Audius roadmap

Genesis (05/2018—12/2018)

The project team launched the first functioning versions of the Audius smart contracts, content node, and discovery node shortly after publishing the first draft of the Audius whitepaper outlining the plans for the architecture.

Private Alpha (01/2019—07/2019)

The project team started encouraging early users to interact with the protocol and an early user application to provide input six months after the project was founded.

Before bringing in outside node operators to the network, critical concerns were resolved in this phase where access to the product was restricted to invited users. The client was connecting directly with the early iterations of the content node and discovery node at this time, and all content submitted to Audius was hosted on IPFS. The Audius client also included a special web3 login function called Hedgehog that let users join up without connecting to Metamask using just an email and password. To improve the usability of other user products, this was open-sourced as a stand-alone project.

Testnet (08/2019—09/2020)

With the first third-party node operators joining the Audius protocol's network, end users could host artist content and metadata for the first time.

The project team shut down the majority of its internally-operated nodes during this time as more node operators joined, keeping a small number as a canary to gauge the network's performance.

At the end of September 2019, one month into this testnet period, the Audius first-party client functionality was made available to the general public for the first time. This comprised ten fundamental features for adding material, streaming content, finding and following artists, and much more.

Numerous additional client features were released over the ensuing months, including notifications, mobile and desktop apps, remix competitions, and a detailed API for interacting directly with user-operated nodes.

Over 500,000 fans were using the protocol each month by the time the testnet period came to an end.

Mainnet Launch (10/2020)

The Audius platform token was created at the time of the platform's mainnet launch, giving platform users including fans, artists, and curators the opportunity to profit from their value-added contributions.

Audius will launch a protocol dashboard to display analytics and governance for all stakeholders in addition to the range of client use cases already described.

Crossing the Chasm (12/2020 and beyond)

The crypto-native primitives powering the protocol's underpinnings will enable the Audius community to introduce new methods for content ownership and monetization never previously possible. Audius will always put an emphasis on simplicity to provide a user experience that is straightforward and based on web3, since it is a platform that is well-positioned to bridge the gap between crypto and a mainstream audience.

Active participants can control protocol updates through a continuing distribution to new stakeholders using the Audius token. Participants in the protocol must consistently make valuable contributions to maintain governance weight; otherwise, their influence will be diminished and replaced by others who make similar contributions.

As a result, Audius will always be a protocol run wholly by its users and managed by community governance.

AUDIUS is a one-of-a-kind and innovative music streaming platform that uses blockchain technology to give artists more control over their work and more equitable revenue distribution. Its decentralized nature and emphasis on supporting independent and emerging talent distinguish it from other platforms in the market, making it an appealing alternative for artists and music fans alike.