RCRDSHP, a US-based NFT platform for electronic music, claims to have paid artists and creatives more than $600,000 in the six months since its launch in August 2021.
According to the first payout figures shared publicly by the platform, RCRDSHP says it has dished out $515,000 to creators from primary sales so far.
In addition to revenue from primary collectible sales, RCRDSHP reports that music creators have earned nearly $90,000 on the platform’s secondary market.
The $600,000 figure, says the company, encompasses digital collectibles supplied by acts from the dance music world, including Todd Terry, The Scumfrog, Fat Rat, Solarstone, Stoneface & Terminal, and DJ Rap.
RCRDSHP adds that the “overwhelming majority” of the 382,000 collectibles created by RCRDSHP sold at what it calls “accessible price points”.
The platform launched in mid August 2021 with a drop of 5555 “genesis packs”, made up of electronic and dance music digital collectibles.
The release sold out “in a matter of hours”, according to RCRDSHP, with a second larger release selling out “in minutes” the following week.
RCRDSHP’s music and content partners included Aneesh Gera, Ashley Wallbridge, Bar25, Black Hole Recordings, Blanco Y Negro, Blacksoul Music, Christian Barbuto, Circus Recordings, CloudKid, Dexter King, Dino Maggiorana, Disco Fries, D-Nox & Beckers, D-Unity/Unity Records, Great Wall Festival, HQ Recordings, Iboga Records, Kaiserdisco, Kaiser Souzai/Ballroom Records.
The company closed a multi-million dollar seed round in September, supported by Dapper labs, which MBW understood at the time to be over $5m.
RCRDSHP Founder and CEO Obie Fernandez told MBW in February that the platform allows fans to “be closer to the artists and music they love”.
How do NFTs fit into this? While most other NFT marketplaces are based on auctions or fixed-price sales, RCRDSHP says that it curates and releases digital ‘packs’ of content, which can contain music tracks, mixtapes, video clips, static visuals, and other multimedia collectibles.
“Fan experiences enabled by Web3 and NFT technologies that reward fans in this way are a perfect use case for this technology,” Fernandez told MBW.
Elsewhere in the sector, an NFT release from Snoop Dogg recently generated tens of millions of dollars, and Steve Aoki launched his own metaverse and NFT membership platform, called the A0K1VERSE.
Dolly Parton also entered the fold in March with the launch of the ‘Dollyverse’, a Web3 experience offering limited-edition NFTs.
“To put this number into perspective, an artist would need about 125 million streams at the average payout rate on a streaming music service to reach half a million dollars in revenue.”
Obie Fernandez, RCRDSHP
Obie Fernandez, said: “To put this number into perspective, an artist would need about 125 million streams at the average payout rate on a streaming music service to reach half a million dollars in revenue.
“It’s still very early days for RCRDSHP, and we have a lot of new features and experiences we’re rolling out.
“We anticipate that this figure will grow exponentially in the coming years, proving that web3 can provide new, substantial value to artists and fans.”Music Business Worldwide