A new NFT marketplace aims to help musicians ride out the continuing cost-of-living crisis.
Aficionados NFT Marketplace is a music-focused platform launching June 27 that is addressing the huge issue of inequity in revenue distribution throughout the music industry by enabling young, emerging and breakthrough artists to create and independently manage new revenue streams through the sale of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
By using the Aficionados NFT Marketplace, artists can monetise their music and more by minting and reselling original NFTs of audio, video, photos, artwork, tickets and fan access, pre-sale access — you name it, it can be used in an NFT. What’s more, fans and collectors don’t need to know anything about blockchain technology to get involved! They can buy NFTs easily using USD (date TBC) or Ethereum, a leading cryptocurrency.
The Aficionados NFT Marketplace has already attracted a host of dynamic artists across the musical spectrum and further afield, from household names to independent artists to emerging talent. Some of the names they’ve worked with to date include:
• Skinny Living — a British soul-rock band with a huge live following and previously signed to both RCA and Polydor. However, having grown sick of the established industry (one label made them change their name to Newfamiliar), they decided to regain control, reverted to their old name and became independent, working with Music Crowns to connect directly to their audience.
• Peter Bence — a Guinness World Record-holding pianist with one million YouTube subscribers and over one billion streams of his music and videos. Peter can rightly be called a social media phenomenon, but he also tours regularly to enthusiastic audiences and is now engaging them further by releasing content through Aficionados.
• The Trouble Notes — a multi-nationality, multi-instrumentalist busking group with tens of thousands of active followers across streaming platforms and social media. Their leader Bennet Cerven is an NFT enthusiast, and he now works closely with the Aficionados team, ensuring that the platform keeps artists and their music at its core. The band played at Glastonbury 2022.
Aficionados’ marketplace is focused on the artists and their music. However, it also has space for those creators that give music its third dimension and is open for other creatives to do their thing.
One such creator launching their first NFTs with Aficionados is organic painter Carne Griffiths, who paints with tea, coffee and alcohol. Carne, in partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital and West Contemporary, has painted portraits of the Queen for the Jubilee celebrations, the physical versions of which sold out in just three days for in excess of £100,000. 70 unique NFT versions will be made available as part of the Aficionados launch date of June 27 with exciting unlockable content.
To help bring fresh talent to the platform, Aficionados has hooked up with Music Crowns, a music magazine, social media giant, and artist discovery platform with over five million followers. Music Crowns has been at the forefront of discovering and championing new music talent for over a decade now and has worked with the likes of Lewis Capaldi, Freya Ridings, Callum Scott, Tash Sultana and Jessie Reyez.
As an Aficionados spokesperson explained: “The music industry is in a really positive place right now, with tech and NFT innovations opening up genuine revenue streams (Spotify pays artists between $0.003 – $0.005 per stream on average) for those up-and-coming artists who have historically struggled to make money from doing what they love. This is about adding new dimensions to the relationship between an artist and their fanbase. It’s not just paying for JPEGs!”
Music Crowns founder Sam Gilbert added: “The rise of NFTs will have a profound democratizing effect on the entire music industry. For the first time ever, artists can create and independently manage their own revenue streams, whilst also building deeper connections with fans. Social media and streaming platforms tend to heavily favour the big stars, which leaves little revenue for emerging and breakthrough artists. However, by selling NFTs, artists and digital creators can potentially raise their earning potential to the next level. It’s a very exciting moment for the industry. We know there feels like a rush to NFTs at the moment but our principle has always been supporting artists and this platform gives a unique way to do that.”
The Aficionados platform was built in collaboration with VereNFT, a white-label solution that enables brands to develop their own, bespoke NFT marketplaces on the Aventus Network blockchain. In addition to industry-leading security and indisputable proof-of-ownership for assets sold on Aficionados, the Aventus Network ensures that creating and selling NFTs remains affordable for artists.
Alan Vey, co-founder and executive chairman of VereNFT, and co-founder and CEO of Aventus Network, said: “Aficionados is a perfect use case for the VereNFT solution, demonstrating the incredible potential of the music industry and non-fungible tokens working together to benefit emerging artists. The NFT market is undergoing a period of rapid growth as people start to realize that this is a developing technology with potential far beyond a few collectable memes. It can also have a major social impact, and we anticipate that thousands of audio, photographic, and video NFTs will be bought, sold and traded through Aficionados, supporting independent artists and redressing the balance between recording artists and their labels.
For more information, go to www.mn2s.com.
