Sona is a brand new web3 streaming protocol that makes use of DeFi primitives (decentralized finance primary constructing blocks) to put the monetary energy again into artists’ palms with its rewards mannequin, auctions and ad-free streaming. Sona emerged from stealth at present, saying the open beta launch of its first product—Sona Stream, a free music streaming service with zero subscriptions or advertisements mixed with a marketplace the place artists share music and public sale off SONAs, “digital twins” or digital property of songs that may solely be owned by one particular person at a time.
Alongside the launch information, the corporate additionally introduced its $6.9 million seed funding spherical from Polychain Capital, Haun Ventures and Rogue Capital. The funds will likely be used to develop new options and rent engineers.
Sona’s marketplace permits artists to public sale their SONAs to collectors for 24 hours. They set a minimal worth and promote to the best bidder, getting immediate liquidity. What’s most notable is that the proprietor of a SONA receives 70% of the streaming payout rewards primarily based on a pro-rata share of whole streams on the platform. Meanwhile, artists get 30% and the corporate takes a 7% charge. Plus, the rewards pool is funded from a share of SONA gross sales, which means every buy helps all artists on Sona Stream. In the longer term, Sona will embrace different transactions like tipping, merchandise, ticket purchases, stem downloads and fixed-price audio downloads for DJs
“It’s pooled every two weeks and then redistributed to every artist and collector, proportional to how much [the specific song] is streamed,” co-founder Laura Jaramillo defined throughout a personal demo. “So, you’re paying artists for their work quickly, incentivizing the creation of that work, and then also rewarding the people that are actually supporting those artists.”
The foremost thought with SONAs — and music NFTS typically – is that it encourages fans to spend money on their favourite artists and promote their work. In this case, when a SONA proprietor shares the track on social media, their followers are directed to Sona Stream, serving to the streaming service develop its person base and earn income on the identical time. And not like different music NFTs, SONAs are unrelated to royalties from different streaming platforms. Rewards are from the Sona ecosystem solely.
“The artist and rightsholders retain 100% ownership of the original song — so that’s a bit different and why we don’t really see ourselves as a music NFT platform. We’re focused on the relationships between artists and fans,” co-founder Jennifer Lee, aka producer and DJ TOKiMONSTA, instructed us. Last 12 months, TOKiMONSTA offered 100 editions of her newest single, Loved By U, on Sound.xyz, a marketplace for music NFTs.
Collectors should dwell within the U.S. and be not less than 18 years previous to purchase a SONA. They are additionally allowed to promote and commerce SONAs, each on Sona and third-party marketplaces.
Sona’s streaming service is at present residence to 5 million tracks by artists Rochelle Jordan, CRi, Adam Oh, Cakes da Killa, Gavin Turek, Dakytl, Aquiles Navarro and Sara Hartman, amongst others. By subsequent 12 months, Sona could have 16 million songs on the platform.
Sona co-founders Laura Jaramillo and Jennifer Lee
Jaramillo, a long-time NFT product designer, created Sona to assist her mom Raquel Gonzalez, a Puerto Rican artist and activist, together with different impartial artists who discover it tough to earn a dwelling off their music.
“I wanted to create something that ultimately my mom could use, who is running into some of the biggest challenges that an artist faces– building an audience and making sustainable revenue. I designed a protocol that she could use to monetize off those 100 to 1,000 true fans who want to show how much they appreciate her music, but then also have sustainable revenue coming in every two weeks and combat the fact that artists are not making that much on streaming. And if they are making something on streaming, they don’t see it for three to six months,” Jaramillo mentioned, whereas additionally revealing to us that musical expertise runs within the household. While her music profession was short-lived, Jaramillo was 16 years previous when she was supplied a label deal.
“The secret story is that when I was when I was in elementary school to high school, I was a competing songwriter and singer who represented Puerto Rico multiple times… The [music label] wanted me to drop out of high school, move to LA and be a Latin pop star. But that was the opposite of my music. I wrote music to help you go through catharsis, so I very quickly gave up on that dream because I was like, ‘Oh, they see me as what they could sell me as and not what I can create,’” Jaramillo mentioned.
“[Sona] is trying to make it easier for someone to enter music without completely selling out or being taken advantage of,” she added.
Sona will host its first-ever public sale tomorrow, December 7 at 8 p.m., that includes TOKiMONSTA’s Grammy-nominated monitor Rouge. Released in 2017, the track marked her monumental return to music after her battle with moyamoya, a uncommon mind situation.