[Transcript ] AMA with Charlie & Clarence
Launching the wave forward.
On 11 Jan, 1PM UTC, we had a great AMA with ACryptoS users on their Telegram group with 2 of our key founders, Charlie Lim and Clarence Yap. Check out the transcript below and hear their insights on why they started The Great Wave, and how they and the team plan to bring this Artist Collective DAO forward.
Note: The transcript has been slightly edited for clarity. You can also access the direct link to the AMA on TG here.
BKT : We have Charlie Lim, acclaimed singer-songwriter/producer, and Clarence Yap, from Umami Records. Both are they key founders of the WAV platform, along with a number of other founders. Let’s give them a big 🌊!
Charlie : haha hey everyone thanks for having us
BKT : Welcome Charlie
Charlie : *bow*
Justclarence : Hi everyone!!
x.Acryptos : *wave*
BKT : Welcome Clarence 👋🏼🌊, wanna give us a quick intro of yourselves?
Charlie : Sure :) hey guys I’m Charlie, am a singer-songwriter/producer currently based in singapore
been doing music for about 14 years now, was signed to universal music from 2016–2020 and am independent again :) couple of #1 records on the iTunes charts here in SG, over 50 million streams on digital platforms blah blah…urgh don’t really like shilling
Here are some links to my music 🙃https://open.spotify.com/artist/3FodFdWfVWIiER6Cv6YVVQ?si=cl2cSQqnS4myT1LlWrwh4g
https://youtube.com/wherewascharlie
https://instagram.com/wherewascharlie
https://twitter.com/wherewascharlie
Justclarence : Hi everyone, I’ve been in the music industry for 15 years…have produced music festivals and concerts for arts centres, managed bands, labels…and basically trying to help artists realise their artistic vision.
Charlie : But yes! have been in the music space for a long time, seeing how it’s evolved over the past decade
BKT : Awesome to hear that. As per why this is all about music, let’s let our users know what The Great Wave is all about. I’m sure many users here only know that we launched this token via ACryptoS, but do not fully understand it.
Can you let us know briefly, what is The Great Wave?
Charlie : I haven’t been in crypto as long (probably around 2016/2017 which was when i first started reading about eth), but have been fascinated by and watching the space closely for some time now, just taking notes and trying to get my head around it — and seeing how best we can use it as a tool to empower artists and their fans
I’ve been fascinated by the mechanisms of DAOs and smart contracts, and how defi basically allows the democratisation of investment — and thought applying that to an artist collective (The Great Wave) would be pretty cool!
along came @acryptosx and here we are 😊
BKT : Maybe we’ll get @acryptosx to drop in some thoughts in a bit as well
Charlie : We’ve been working really hard ironing out the kinks together with @Toortheroot over the past few months, while getting artists and producers on board — everyone’s really excited about the potential of something like this, building an ecosystem that’s sustainable but also nimble and adaptable
Justclarence : And so that’s how The Great Wave came about… basically an artist collective DAO. We wanted to utilise the blockchain/Web 3.0, to build an ecosystem around artists, their fans and supporters, bringing music and tech together.
Charlie : We’ve got a strong founding team of forward-thinking pioneers from both the creative arts/media and tech/crypto industries, some of whom you here are familiar with already, alongside award winning artists/producers to kick things off
BKT : That’s great to know that we’re in good hands. And we can see from The Great Wave docs and website that a few of the founding members are from ACryptoS as well 💪🏼
Charlie : Yup, i really admire the work that the ACS devs have done and the trust/reputation that they’ve built with the community
BKT : So in this music industry, what do you see that The Great Wave can help with? What problems do both of you see so far, being in the industry for more than 14 over years?
Justclarence : There are actually very few gatekeepers who determine what kind of music audiences should listen to. And artists really are having to churn out works that these decision makers determine to be “right” for audiences.
Charlie : As an artist, one of the pain points of being in these centralised systems is the lack of support you actually get — whether financial, marketing, production etc
and as an artist, you’re perpetually owing the label something — an advance for a record, which might not even be released (have had so many friends in major label deals and got screwed over)
(user) mconstant : @ClayMusic waiting for something newer/better than Audius or for Audius to just become better. but an artist DAO might include a stable of visual artists and video artists
Charlie : Exactly :) so as a collective, you own and have a stake in it, instead of a label or a management owning you
Justclarence : That’s exactly right! it’s not intended to be a music artist collective…that’s why we’ve named it an artist collective…not a musician’s collective
mconstant : And they could be incentivized to collaborate with artists to make music videos, microsites, album art, merch and I suppose.. to be complete… incentives for mastering and mixing / post processing / production etc
Charlie : Yup, and community is such an important part of creation
mconstant : I’ve wanted for a long time a place to get paid in crypto for beats and produced works including sound design, there should be a dao that facilitates selling stems as NFT packs
and encourages collaborative work between vocal artists, instrumentalists, scorers, producers, etc
Charlie : Definitely — all this is what we already have in mind, and as a DAO we can adapt accordingly to what spaces we can fit in when it comes to music/arts in this new creator/investor economy, where everyone can have a stake in the artist’s work
The first few steps will be important of course, branding it well as a collective and having a solid artist lineup that already has some following to create a good proof of concept — which in itself is going to be a statement
We have a marketing team and designers coming on board, and aiming for a good push to the public
mconstant : Charlie your tunes will be on rotation today for me while I fiat mine :D
Charlie : Haha aw cheers man 🙈
BKT : Glad to hear that the DAO has methods to solve this, and give back the ownership of their creations to the artists.
Could we let our users know more on how the DAO functions, and how this would help enable the various aspects of the artists & music industry?
Charlie : For artists and investors alike — we’re essentially harnessing compounding networking effects of collaboration, efficient cryptocurrency models directly monetizing connection to engaged audiences, and the delayering of inefficient middleman/centralised organisational costs
An example would be like for our first wave, where the DAO will commission artists to start work. developers/designers/visual artists will work on gamifying/add more utility/value to the assets as collectibles, whether analogue or digital. the profits are then shared with the treasury and the artists
Justclarence : One thing we are also focusing on, is to make it accessible to musicians and fans, who might be non crypto native
We think we can do a lot more to strengthen the links between audiences and artists, create more engagement…The platform connects funding investors to the artists, and fans too can support their favourite artists and their work in $WAV.
Charlie : [In reply to Justclarence]
The appeal of a collective allows us to build strength in numbers, and have more influence over the various industries/networks we are in. collaboration and community breeds more quality work, brings in more supporters, more revenue generated, more funding for new projects…that’s the cycle we’ve already started to work towards :)
BKT : Nice to know that artists can all share a part in the DAO. How about the investors, be they from crypto or non-crypto, What is in it for them to invest in $WAV?
Charlie : you basically have a stake as a first mover in the changing landscape of where the music and art industry is heading towards — the DAO has a share in the music/art created, and staked WAV token holders form the DAO, hence getting a share in any upside of released works/assets/ticketed events
Justclarence : Well for starters we’re looking for new ways to create opportunities for monetisation of artist content. we’re lookng to be able to do things that havent been done before.
BKT : Cool. So one thing that it always concerning for crypto investors is on the sustainability of the project. No one likes distribution of tokens with value printed from thin air. How is The Great Wave sustainable, and where do the revenue for the investors and token value come from?
Justclarence : You can actually see our model here
https://www.thegreatwave.io/artists/#gallery
HM — unrekt.net :
Charlie : [In reply to HM — unrekt.net]
1. The DAO approves and funds artists and their projects, with a budget to produce creative work and music/art.
2. The music gets distributed via delivery medium and channels such as Spotify, YouTube, radio, and other streaming services.
3. Further revenue is generated from Live ticketed events, brand sponsorships, merchandise, advertising copyrights usage, etc.
4. Additional revenue in the crypto market from sale of limited edition artists’ NFTs, special entry access for NFT holders etc.
5. Revenue gets shared between the artists and the DAO, rewarding the $WAV holders in the governance vault
BKT : Nice. And how about the tokenomics of the DAO? How do they work?
Charlie : $WAV is our Native Token
TGW is our Governance Vault (receipt token when vaulted)
You basically can earn platform profits and take part in Governance, by staking in this vault
Investing in this Vault requires you to first form the WVP LP,
WVP (WAV Pool) LP is our Core LP, consisting of WAV-ACS-BNB in 6:2:2 ratio. It is a Balancer V2 LP, on the Acsi.Finance DEX.
The locked TGW governs the DAO, and also earns DAO revenue and emissions, which will be automatically compounded in the Vault
You may choose to buy $WAV to invest, or you can farm $WAV as well
There are 3 farms available where you can farm $WAV currently:
1. ACS-ACS-BNB-BUSD (A2B2)
2. WAV-ACS-BNB
3. WAV-BNB
BKT : Yields are pretty awesome in all three of these farms now in fact 🔥There is a WAV app site up if i’m not wrong, lemme send the link here
app.thegreatwave.io
Charlie : Yup, and i guess due to the nature of this partnership with @acryptosx you guys are amongst the first to know about this project 🙂
BKT : Haha super early I’d say. Hope that after this AMA, everyone gets to understand much more, and not miss out on this gem 😉
@ClayMusic anything you’d like to add on from your side?
BKT : Current Max APY for reference 🤑
Justclarence : Only to say that we’re talking to several artists, and many are excited and aware of the possibilities that crypto/web3 brings …but most are not crypto native, so while we are excited to be growing the ecosystem, we are constantly thinking of how to make all this easy to understand and participate for more people. We’re really excited!
BKT : 👍🏻 Alright, any questions from the group? While we’ve Charlie and Clarence here with us!
We’ll have info about how your can stake in the WAV farm and win awesome rewards coming up 💰
The (not) Rekt (again) : Is there any requirement for artist to join? example minimum already have music, already have audience etc
Charlie : Well as mentioned earlier, our first projects and lineup are going to be important to make a statement and also as proof of concept. We have been working on getting this first wave of artist projects together, and while the founding team has a key curatorial and producing role in the first projects, we are leaving room as the community grows, to allow for different ways to widen the curatorial input, while balancing the bar for artistic/musical quality.
RationalPrespective : What’s your main difference with Audius?
Charlie : Audius is a web3 streaming platform
we are an artist collective, and we can position ourselves to partner up with platforms like audius or opulous, but still maintain good relationships with the platforms that we currently use like spotify, youtube etc :)
basically we don’t have to change the world when it’s already changing so fast
let’s position ourselves to adapt to it and use the tools available to make the best art that we can that will generate interest in our project and make a difference in both the crypto space and the real world
Justclarence : We are not trying to be an audius, and are not a streaming platform. In that way we are not limited as we find the best way to help each artist monetise their creative works, with a combination of “traditional” platforms, but also utilising new streams of income afforded by web3
J. Marin : In your roadmap is it foreseen that artists can mint or buy/sell NFTs in Marketplace?
Charlie : We are definitely looking into it, but we also want to be considerate and focused in our approach to NFTs — it’s obviously a very saturated market now and we want to be able to provide real world value in whatever we put out
J. Marin : So Apart from what you say in the AMA, do you have other words to tell us about great opportunities and mutual benefits that the Acryptos / TheGreatWave partnership can offer us in terms of NFTs?
Charlie : As mentioned, by virtue of this collaboration you guys know of this before we start rolling it out to the public
we’ll be rolling out more benefits/partnership announcements soon 😉
J. Marin : Thanks for the great answers!😉
Charlie : [In reply to mconstant]
Just to answer this earlier! it’s on the docs page as well. our team also comprises design studios, marketing agencies and music media, alongside an award-winning artist/producer lineup (to be announced soon)
BKT : Definitely lots of exciting stuff lined up. Drop in The Great Wave TG at @thegreatwavedao, and say 🌊
Sites
Telegram: t.me/thegreatwavedao
Project Page: www.thegreatwave.io/
App Page: app.thegreatwave.io
Docs: https://docs.thegreatwave.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegreatwaveio
Medium: https://medium.com/thegreatwave
Invest in $WAV here.
And we mentioned that there’ll be a giveaway happening on Twitter, with prizes up to $300 🤑 Here’s the details
- Giveaway -
1. Stake any amount in the WAV-ACS-BNB farm (https://app.thegreatwave.io) *no deposit or withdrawal fees
2. Quote Tweet https://twitter.com/acryptosdao/status/1477318167126962176 with a screenshot of your staked funds
3. Tag 3 friends & @thegreatwaveio $WAV #TheGreatWave
4. 6 x $50 to be won. Winners chosen in a week’s time!
BKT : Thanks a lot everyone who joined in the AMA today!
And definitely a big thanks to @wherewascharlie and @ClayMusic for spending their time explaining in detail about The Great Wave. 🙏🏼
J. Marin : Thanks for the AMA. good information….🤝
Justclarence : Thank you 🙏 and really appreciate your taking the time to chat with us.
Charlie : 👋🌊 thanks everyone! stay safe and keep in touch
