The state of the Traditional music industry.
Each time an artist creates a piece of music, it goes through several hands before it reaches their audience. In each step of the way, a portion of the music ownership is taken away, ultimately leaving the artist with a minuscule revenue from the experience. Moreover, this makes the artist answerable to the various entities in the process like producers, record labels, distributors, music platforms and in some cases NFT marketplaces, when creating their next piece.
Although institutions like record labels helped grow and support artists in their creative journeys, their increased consolidation of control and power stifles musicians, preventing them from growing creatively. The three most prominent record labels, Universal, Sony, and Warner, currently hold a staggering 68% of the music recording market - and importantly these same companies own 9 of the top 10 most popular tracks at any given time. The music industry collected a revenue of around $43B in 2021, with only 12% of that ($5B) going to roughly 5M artists involved averaging ~$1000/artist. With musicians facing delayed and inaccurate royalties from music platforms, there is a dire need to decentralise the music industry and shift control to the artists.
NFT Marketplaces — Web3Music 1.0
There has been an explosion of new NFT marketplaces appearing over the last 12–18months, of which TokenTraxx.com is one. NFTs are rightly heralded as having huge potential to shape the future of music, and NFT marketplaces are an important first step in that transformation. They are, however, far from the end of the story — we see significantly more potential in developing a decentralised protocol; one that enables the Web3 technology that TokenTraxx has developed to exist both within and outside of the TokenTraxx platform.
The new TRAXX protocol for Web3 Music Infrastructure
Through developing TokenTraxx.com, we realised the need to decentralise the technology we have developed, and established the new frontier of the music industry — TRAXX Protocol — The First Ever Protocol Purpose Built for the Music NFT Industry.
While DeFi and other industries have hundreds of dedicated protocols, NONE exists for music. We strongly believe that it is high time the music industry applies its own protocol to support the artists and the music we love. As the music industry continues to expand, more and more artists will be subjected to a system that is not fair to the creators, which intrinsically disconnects artists from the fruits of their labour and crucially stifles creativity in the process. Creators deserve more ownership and control over their work, and a fairer share of revenue and fans deserve to see their money go directly to the artists they love. The flaws and injustices of the music industry can be resolved by a universal adoption of a dedicated protocol, of which the sole purpose is to better serve the world of music!
TokenTraxx aims to fully decentralise the entire music ecosystem using a purposely built protocol that meets industry-specific standards. The TRAXX Protocol is designed to be the foundational “block” for future permissionless innovations, which will evolve as “Ethereum for Music”. Initially, we will act as the guardian of this ecosystem to ensure its sanctity and security, and will eventually hand over the reins entirely to the community. The TRAXX Protocol has been developed using significant input from early adopters of TRAXX platform, artists, and music industry legends.
TRAXX Studios
The overwhelming demand from creators for an individual ownership structure that is interoperable with this permissionless protocol has pushed us to launch TRAXX Studios.
“The studio is freedom, frustration, and fantasy. It’s a place of pure joy and sheer terror. It’s where the magic and genesis of music happens.” TommyD, TokenTraxx Original Founder.
Every artist around the world, regardless of status, can build their own “studio” on top of the TRAXX Protocol. They will own the smart contract, the NFTs, or any other creation built within that particular studio. Artists can create a predetermined, limited number of “Studio Tokens” that allow fans to be a part of their current and future creations. Fans will have the opportunity to buy these tokens to support the artists’ work. Furthermore, these studio tokens can be configured to give token-holders several benefits, such as a percentage of profits, meet and greets, access to VIP seats, and opportunities to buy exclusive, limited edition merchandise.
This system incentivizes the artists to grow creatively and engage meaningfully with their audience so that their own Studio Tokens increase in value. With the middlemen removed from the equation, artists can now interact directly with the community they have created through the protocol based TRAXX Studio. Most importantly, it is entirely up to the artist to decide what portion of tokens to sell, putting them in full control of their own income.
How it works
The TRAXX Studio is a smart contract that will live on-chain on top of TRAXX Protocol. Although the studios will be chain-agnostic, the first implementation will be based on Polygon. Once the studio has been created, Studio Tokens will be generated at a fixed quantity, with no more being generated in the future. Best of all, any artist can join the platform by generating the smart contract for the studio. The artist will be able to configure certain parameters for their tokens such that additional functionality can be added.
Decentralisation is the key
TokenTraxx aims to further decentralise the ecosystem starting with the following two key factors.
- TokenTraxx as a company aims to collect no fees/commission from running any activity on the protocol.
- Fees generated by all the activities within the TRAXX Studio result in TRAXX tokens getting burnt out of supply. As there is a fixed capacity of 350 M tokens, which will increase the value of each individual token and benefit the community as a whole. This concept keeps the entire ecosystem decentralised, and thus self sustained.
