Interview: Meet Algorhythms’ NFT Rhythms

Co-founders AlgorhythmZero and Galgorhythm started the unique music-focused NFT project Algorhythms. In their journey to build a new NFT project for the Algorand community, they decided to create album covers represented by “Algorhythms” connected to an album of songs chosen by the owner.

The project gathers every weekend in their Discord server to listen to each other’s most favourite songs. In short, Algorhythms comes with a great and well-connected community which makes the project so well-liked.

Can you provide a short description of yourself and how you got involved in the blockchain/NFT space?

(AlgorhythmZero) We are an English/Japanese team currently based in Japan.

Personally, I had been following the crypto space for a number of years as some friends of friends were early Bitcoin adopters and became very successful. I never had much money to invest in the past and always thought I had missed the boat.

I finally took the 2021 May dip as an opportunity to get in. Primarily, I started at the surface level with BTC and ETH, and a couple of other top ten coins. I fell down the rabbit hole very quickly and was spending all my time reading and watching videos about different projects.

As for NFTs, I didn’t start to look into them until later. Like many people, my awareness of it was mostly from sales reports from CryptoPunks on Ethereum. I knew other chains had smart contract capabilities, so I started to explore other NFT spaces to see if they were active or growing. Once I found a home in Algorand and had an initial concept, I pitched the idea to a couple of friends to help, although now we are just a team of two.

(Galgorhythm) When we met and had some crypto investments, I was working in IT but hadn’t heard of Algorand before. We talked about crypto, but it wasn’t until around October 2021 that the idea to work together started. He had a general idea and some artwork, but the final Algorhythms project was made through many hours of playing around with the website and different ways to connect the art to music. I am not an artist, so now I handle admin duties like updating music, sending out rewards, and website maintenance.

Can you explain the Algorhythms project? And what are the volumes and record labels?

Algorhythms is a not-so-subtle play on Algorand, algorithms, and musical rhythms, so you might guess we are a music-themed project.

Looking at the quality projects already in the Algorand NFT space, it was clear we would have to do something a bit different to stand out. The initial concept was to make original songs alongside our speaker-head rhythm characters and make them a package. Unfortunately, we are not musicians.

So we thought we could let people choose what songs play with their Algorhythm on their own custom “album.” We have a project Spotify account where we set up individual playlists for every Algorhythm, holders then submit five song choices to us, and update their album on Spotify. This also connects to a section on our website where you can see the playlists of all holders as well as their chosen “cover art” for their album, which can be anything, including other NFTs they want to display. They can also update their songs anytime to keep them fresh or highlight a new artist they like.

On weekends, we randomly play songs from all user albums on our Discord and hang out.

On weekends, we randomly take 50–70 songs from all user albums and make a big playlist to listen to collectively on our Discord. It’s a great time to hang out and talk about music, NFTs, crypto markets, and we also give away NFTs from other projects donated to us by holders or we pick up for prizes. This is an exciting little incentive to tune in, and you don’t need to hold an Algorhythm to join in and win.

The other bonus to this is that if a song from your album is picked and played, we send you a reward for participating and providing music choices. The reward is usually about ~$5 worth of ASA tokens for every song of yours that plays. In the past, we’ve given away OPUL, HDL, YLDY, and sometimes just ALGO. It’s a fun way to spread project awareness and get people to opt-in and start collecting other tokens.

In addition to the albums, we also introduced a new feature for top collectors called Record Labels. If you hold five or more Algorhythms, you get your own record label page on the website with all your rhythms/albums that you can customise and show off.

Algorhythms are split up into “volumes” of 100 for releasing, and each volume is a bit different with new pieces. We are developing merchandise, like album-linked playing cards and apparel, split up based on the volumes.

Can you explain how you can collect Beats and what’s their purpose?

Algo Beats are a fun side-connected NFT contest for anyone to join. They are musical note characters with unique names that match the musical note (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) that they play. The idea is to collect as many of these cheap little Beats as possible to make the longest song and win a large prize of NFTs and Algo.

Just collecting from drops alone wouldn’t be that fun, so we created challenges to make it interesting. Collecting the right note Beats will let you complete a beat-boxing combo and claim a new Beat for free.

We also have special shiny trophy Beats for completing achievements (with great puns). These are collecting challenges or Twitter/Discord-based challenges. And to connect it back to our Algorhythms project, we also give away Beats during our discord radio session to listeners.

We wanted something that would be fun and shareable for anyone in the community and see what we can do to spice up NFT collecting as we advance.

Where do you get inspiration from when designing new Algorhythm NFTs?

There are so many ways to turn any musical instrument or device into facial characteristics/hair that it’s a lot of fun to come up with new pieces. I often walk around second-hand hardware and music shops here in Japan and take photos of things for inspiration.

I often walk around second hand hardware and music shops here in Japan and take photos of things for inspiration.

I try to play with crypto/musician puns like “50 sats” and “Eth Killers” with some of the clothing pieces and see if people get them. Always fun to make Algorhythms!

Why did you choose to use Algorand for your NFT project?

Initially, I looked at several different chains and NFT communities alongside Algorand, such as Polkadot/Kusama, Solana, and Tezos. After a bit of exploration into each, it was pretty clear that Algorand offered not only practically no-cost minting and selling but the most approachable NFT community with a lot of room to grow.

We immediately received a great reception from the Twitter community, who quickly got the premise. Also, the number of transactions we do weekly for rewards and NFT prizes would make the project completely unfeasible on most other chains.

Why should you own an Algorhythm?

I think Algorhythms are for you if:

• You want an NFT that you can change up and share each week again.
• You are a music fan and want to share/discover new music in a like-minded space.
• You want to join a fun community that is connected to many different Algo NFT projects.
• You want to get rewards and value back while you hold your NFT.

Which NFT projects are you most excited about?

I’m excited to see projects that mix it up with fresh ideas. I’ve seen bits and pieces of cool features, discord games, staking rewards popping up and wish I had more time just to go and play in everyone else’s projects for a while. One big shout-out I will give is to the @yieldling team for their “shrimp game” idea. It was great to see! I also know the creator of @Algoknitter has some fun interactive features for his community.

What was your first NFT purchase, and why did you decide to buy that NFT?

My first NFT purchase was actually on Binance, rather shamefully now. It was around the start of their marketplace launch and I liked the art and the idea of printing it out as a conversation piece.

What else should we expect from the Algorhythms project?

There is a lot we want to do moving forwards, not just future volumes. We’ve already been experimenting with different additions like our own music Youtube channel with original music, physical goods, side projects for holders and non-holders. We would also love to dabble with music NFTs or community musicians. I think we have the framework to expand and provide value and entertainment for a long time.

What’s your view on the NFT industry in general and on Algorand?

I think NFTs will continue to grow, especially on Algorand, where the user base has so much growth potential. My prediction for the whole crypto space this next year is that dynamic and upgradable NFTs will take off. It’s something I would love to incorporate personally if possible, in the future.

Thanks!

Algorhythms — Twitter — Discord — Spotify — RandGallery — NFT Explorer Stats