Musical Martian Invasion: Generative Music with PFP NFT
Category Analysis: Music NFT
The success of PFP (profile pics) and visual art NFTs have attracted enormous inflows of capital. While music NFTs have been around for the past couple of years, the ecosystem required to support the music industry has only started to gain substantial traction in recent months. Audius, Royal and other infrastructure projects are enhancing the long-term viability of music NFTs. Some established artists have begun to test the NFT space with successful results.
Industry Pain Point
The statement that 99.9% of all profits go to the top 0.1% of musicians is probably not far from the truth. Up and coming musicians have very little hope of making a sustainable living from producing and performing. NFTs can now become a viable source of revenue for these artists and future profits can even be shared with their fans.
Social tokens are expected to be one of the next big crypto trends in the same vein that music is forecasted to be a next major NFT trend. These 2 areas can actually go quite well together where the music NFT can represent the ownership of the musician’s songs while social tokens can represent how the fans can interact with and support the musician.
Niche:
Generative or algorithmic art has gained a lot of traction over the past 12 months. Just look at the performance of Fidenza Artblocks. While there is no guarantee that the trend will translate to music NFTs, there is a distinct chance that it could.
Risks
As with all crypto and NFTs the risk will be considered high. This is only a recommendation to do your own due diligence on whether the project is suitable for your portfolio.
The first major risk is the potential failure of the project in its initial stages. As with all projects, the riskiest (and most rewarding) part is at the very beginning. Similarly, the riskiest part of pursuing a trend early is that it doesn’t take off in the way you envisage. This will need to be a consideration for the algorithmic music trend.
An added risk is that the 4 founders have elected to remain anonymous. However, I was accompanied by 2 other NFT experts who have generously assisted in providing their expertise by joining me in a video conference with the 4 USA based founders. The founders have clarified that they do intend to dox themselves in the future. Some have current employment considerations.
Key Points from the Video Conference
The team had walked us through their use of Python for coding which was the same coding language that was used by our algorithmic music expert. The team was able to address the questions that our expert had around the technical aspects of delivering on their concept along with discussing their test run of 600 algorithmically generated tracks.
We then discussed elements of the experimental nature of the industry and agreed that the music NFTs and specifically algorithmic music NFTs are a long-term proposition that require the owner to appreciate that it is not about getting rich quickly. It will take time for this sector to evolve and for the trend to take hold.
Lastly, 2 of the founders had previously completed an NFT project called the Rich Gator Golf Club project. They have since resigned from their full-time employment and are concentrating their efforts in the NFT space. They had opened up about the mistakes that they had made while launching the project and the transparency that they had given their community, which in turn, created a greater sense of loyalty from them. The 2 founders also discussed their next steps of building a partnership with a golf brand while also continuing their consultancy with other NFT projects.
Opportunity:
Musical Martian Invasion (MMI) is a genesis collection of 3,333 randomly generated NFTs. No two NFTs are alike. The mint price will be 0.033 eth. The project aims to be one of the most notable music communities on the blockchain
The project will have 4 initial stages:
Stage 1
- Minting of the genesis NFTs
- The funds will be used for 2 purposes. The first is to create the Musician Creator Fund to support and attract musicians to the community. The second purpose is to further develop the algorithmic music and second-generation artworks.
Stage 2:
- Holders of the MMI NFT will be able to upload their own self-produced music track to the project. The community will vote to chose up to 5 winners and they will be rewarded 2 eth each.
Stage 3
- 2nd round of NFT will involve the creation of Martians that will each have their own unique, algorithmically generated theme song. The team has developed an algorithm that combines mp3 files to create thousands of unique tracks in a similar way to how generative art is randomly created.
- Holders will have the opportunity to submit single instrument stems to the algorithm’s input pool, and upon selection by the team, the winners will earn royalties on mint and future sales of the NFTs their stem is on.
- Holders of the genesis collection will have a free mint for this round
Stage 4
- A third round of MMI will be created. Similar to the 2nd round, the MMI will each have their own style of music. However, it can be combined with another MMI to generate a unique song that merges the 2 styles. This is a similar concept to Bored Apes getting a serum to create a Mutant Ape.
- Holders of the genesis collection will have a guaranteed whitelist
Longer term
- The project is intending to create play lists on Spotify and other platforms to support musicians and the community.
- The team is also intending to enhance the musician hub for the sharing of knowledge and for the community to help each other out. There are early signs of the collaboration hub already where the team has been in talks with multiple community members about collaborating in music production.
- The other objective of the project is to create an alpha discussion channel for the sharing of ideas and information. This can range from tools for the musicians through to investment opportunities
- Lastly, the team is looking to run music activities for future whitelists to attract likeminded people into the community while also ensuring that there is a good mix of people with different backgrounds.
Minting information
- Whitelist sale will be Saturday 29 January 2022 at 12am EST
- Public sale will be 36 hours later.
- Whitelisted people are able to mint up to 5 NFTs.
- Unsold NFTs in the whitelist round will be offered for public round.
Behind the scenes access
I am aware of the identity of the musical lead for this project. I have listened to the songs that he has produced and it is pretty good. My personal thoughts are that the music is somewhere between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jack Johnson and I would be listening to it while I’m on a surfing road trip. Note that, there will be different styles of music for this project so it will not be based purely on the musical lead’s personal style. The second musician has been playing the bass guitar for 15 years and he was the first person I had a long discord conversation with at the start. Finally, as discussed, the other 2 founders have successfully completed the Rich Gator Golf Club NFT project.
Author’s final thoughts
The last point I want to make is that I am using MMI’s community as potentially a way to attain alpha in the music NFT space. I have no idea whether this will happen but I’m making the assumption (and a leap of faith) that among a dedicated music community, there will be people who will understand the developments of the space a lot better than I ever will. If a group of musicians want to release their works on a particular platform, it could be a sign that I should invest there. If they think that a musician’s latest release is worth checking out, it could be a sign I should do the same. If I want to collaborate in the future, I have somewhere to turn to.
As you can appreciate, it is not possible for me to guarantee that the project will last the distance, nor can I guarantee you will do well financially from this. I am simply providing you content and an opportunity for you to take part. I am not in this for a short term gain as I believe it will take time for the generative music space to grow and flourish.
I wish you all the best for the rest of 2022.
