In brief

Audius (AUDIO) is a decentralized music streaming platform built on blockchain. The project's goal is to give artists and managers more control over their musical creations. When artists upload content to Audius, they can create immutable records of their work, which are secured by a decentralized network of nodes.

Audius also eliminates the middlemen in the traditional music industry by directly connecting artists with their fans. Only artists have ownership over their music, and they get to decide how to monetize it on the platform. Artists can distribute music for free or set a custom fee for fans to unlock exclusive content.

Unlike other music streaming services, Audius does not take a cut of artists' revenue. Music curators can receive 90% of revenue from AUDIO, the native cryptocurrency of Audius. The remaining 10% will be given to service providers supporting the Audius network.

AUDIO is an ERC-20 token, which also serves as the governance token on Audius. Owners can stake their AUDIO to help secure the network, participate in Audius management, and access exclusive content. They can also receive AUDIO rewards from staking.

Introduce

With the rise of music streaming platforms, listening to music has become more accessible than ever. However, artists have always faced challenges in the traditional music industry, such as low income, little transparency, and difficulty having control over how their products are distributed or sold. contents. Audius aims to solve these challenges by empowering music creators and helping them monetize their content through its native cryptocurrency AUDIO.

What is Audius?

Audius is a fully decentralized music streaming platform that allows listeners to support artists directly through its native cryptocurrency, AUDIO. As of December 2021, Audius has nearly 6 million unique monthly users and connections to more than 100,000 artists.

Co-founded in 2018 by Forrest Browning and Roneil Rumburg, Audius revolutionized the traditional music industry model by eliminating middlemen and record label barriers. Unlike other streaming platforms, an artist's revenue is not determined by the number of times a song is played. Audius gives artists exclusive ownership of their music, and they can decide how to monetize their work. According to Audius, music curators will receive 90% of revenue in AUDIO tokens, while the remaining 10% will go to node operators (stakeholders) supporting the Audius network.

Audius is a layer 2 blockchain protocol originally built on an Ethereum sidechain - called the POA Network. Due to the growing demand for streaming, Audius faced scaling issues and the project decided to migrate its content management system to the Solana blockchain in 2020, to improve performance. But the project's native cryptocurrency, AUDIO, remains on the Ethereum blockchain. AUDIO is an ERC-20 governance token that allows founders to vote on proposals related to network changes and upgrades. They can also unlock exclusive features by staking AUDIO.

Image from the Audius website

How does Audius work?

Audius aims to solve the challenges artists face in the music industry, including music rights, royalties and ownership by giving everyone the freedom to distribute, monetize and play. online music. The project also eliminates layers of intermediaries between artists and their audiences, allowing them to interact directly on the platform.

Unlike traditional channels in the music industry, Audius does not pay artists for the number of times their tracks are played. The project looks at artists' activity on the platform, how they interact with fans, and overall engagement from users.

On Audius, artists can upload and distribute their songs using decentralized nodes. There are several ways for artists to earn income from their audio content without sacrificing ownership. Artists can also receive AUDIO by reaching the Top 5 Weekly Trending Tracks, Top 5 Weekly Trending Playlists, Top 10 Monthly API Apps, and uploading their first track after Verify social network accounts.

Audius also allows artists to interact with their community through artist tokens. Artist tokens give holders exclusive access to token-restricted content, such as unreleased tracks, remix contests, etc. From time to time, Audius plans to issue AUDIO tokens to artists based on their social engagement with fans and number of listeners.

In the future, Audius plans to add support for USDT and other stablecoins so fans can unlock paid content.

What is AUDIO?

Audius token (AUDIO) is the native cryptocurrency of the Audius protocol. It serves three main functions within the Audius ecosystem:

• Network Security.

• Governance tokens.

• Give access to exclusive features and content.

AUDIO is an ERC-20 token with a total initial supply of 1 billion and no maximum supply. As of December 2021, more than 500 million AUDIO were in circulation.

Security level

The Audius network is secured by decentralized nodes. Anyone can become a node operator by holding and staking AUDIO tokens. The larger their stake, the higher the chance of fans using their nodes to listen to music. By helping the project run protocol operations, they can earn AUDIO from ongoing token issuance and synthetic pools.

There are two types of nodes on Audius: content nodes and discovery nodes. Content nodes store, secure, and manage content on behalf of artists. Artists can also run content nodes to host their own content, but that is optional. Discovery nodes index metadata and music uploaded to the Audius content ledger to allow fans to quickly search for artists or songs.

Nodes on the network will continuously send snapshots of artists' works to the blockchain. This can create immutable time-stamped records of the content.

Administration

AUDIO also serves as a governance token. As mentioned, AUDIO stakers can participate in network operations as content nodes or discovery nodes. If users want to vote on suggestions for upcoming network updates, they can earn governance by continuously creating value for the network.

On Audius, stakers do not have to run a node before they can voice their opinion. The community is encouraged to share their thoughts on the protocol. One AUDIO token is one vote. AUDIO rewards match the incentives of artists, fans, and node operators so they can enjoy a decentralized music streaming experience.

Feature access

The AUDIO token allows fans and artists to unlock exclusive features on the platform. Artists can leverage AUDIO to grow and engage their fans. By staking AUDIO, artists can access content distribution tools to distribute their artist tokens to fans. Fans who hold artist tokens can then unlock exclusive access to their unique content and experiences, such as listening to unreleased tracks, participating in remix competitions, etc.

Users with a certain amount of AUDIO in their Audius wallet can unlock 4 VIP tiers to enjoy additional benefits. The more AUDIO you own, the higher your VIP level. After reaching the minimum threshold of the VIP level, users can earn profile badges that give access to new features as soon as they are released. The requirements and benefits of each tier can be changed through community governance.

How is Audius different from other streaming platforms?

One of the key differences between Audius and other streaming platforms like Spotify is that it uses blockchain technology to operate in a decentralized manner. This allows artists and content creators to share their music while possessing more control over their content.

According to the co-founders, 90% of the platform's revenue will go directly to artists. In the traditional music industry, where only 12% belongs to the artists. Audius allows artists to earn a more reasonable income.

Another difference is that Audius includes AUDIO token holders, be they artists or fans, in the decision-making process for the network. Holding an AUDIO token gives them a vote to participate in the governance of the protocol. They can vote for or against any proposed changes on the platform, which is not something we can find on other music streaming services.

Audius also shows that it has the ability to help artists grow their fan base and community. It is the first music streaming platform to partner with TikTok, a video streaming social media platform. This partnership allows TikTok users to add songs on the Audius platform directly to their videos. In addition to TikTok, Audius has also integrated with blockchain game DeFi Land as an FM radio tower in the game's metaverse, which can help promote artists.

Image from the Audius website

How to buy AUDIO on Binance?

Users can buy Audius project tokens (AUDIO) on cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance.

1. Log in to your Binance account, then click [Trade] in the top bar to go to the basic or advanced trading page. In this tutorial, we will choose [Basic].

2. Next, enter “AUDIO” in the search bar to see the list of LTC trading pairs available on Binance. We will take the AUDIO/BUSD pair as an example. Click on this pair to open the AUDIO/BUSD trading page.

3. Scroll down to the [Spot] box. Enter the amount of AUDIO to purchase. In this example, we will use the Market command. Click [Buy AUDIO] to confirm the order and you will see your purchased AUDIO in your Spot Wallet.

summary

Audius may look like just another music streaming service, but it offers new opportunities for the music industry and artists. It also demonstrates how blockchain applications can be used in many different aspects of life, both in real life and in the metaverse.