Audius announced a $5 million round of strategic funding led by major music celebrities.
Artist investors include Katy Perry, Nas, The Chainsmokers via their Mantis VC, Jason Derulo, Pusha T, Steve Aoki, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, and Disclosure.
What is Audius?
Audius is a blockchain-powered, decentralized music streaming service with social media features.
It's owned and run by an open-source community of artists, fans, and developers, and has its own crypto token, $AUDIO.
On a technical level, it’s a blockchain protocol that lets artists produce immutable and timestamped records for their creative works, secured by a decentralized network of node operators.
It was originally built on POA Network, an Etherium sidechain, and later moved parts of its service to the Solana blockchain.
Nas: “I believe [blockchains] might be the most important technology to ever hit the music industry,”
“I believe [blockchains] might be the most important technology to ever hit the music industry,” Nas says in a statement provided to Rolling Stone. “Everyone who uploads to Audius can be an owner. You can’t say that about any other platform.” Bandier is on a similar page: “Historically, the music business has tended to be slow on the uptake to technological shifts, often fighting rather than embracing them. I do think blockchain is likely to be a commanding force in further empowering creators and more deeply engaging direct artist fan-relationships.”