Sound’s 1 Year Anniversary

gm. Sound officially turns one today

We launched with a vision to build a new music ecosystem that values artists and their music while connecting fans more closely to the music they love, and we’re emboldened to see that our mission resonates so deeply with artists and collectors alike.

In our first year, Sound has:

↳ onboarded 240 artists
↳ dropped 709 tracks
↳ reached 6,200 unique collectors
↳ minted 33,771 NFTs
↳ paid $4 million directly to artists

We launched with a simple hypothesis: that there is an unmet demand for listeners to support the artists they love. Our first year has demonstrated that our vision is possible: $4 million earned by artists from listeners on Sound.

Today, our conviction in Music NFTs has reached an all-time high:

  1. The framework for deciding whether to collect a Music NFT is more clear than for other forms of art (like PFPs)

  2. Music NFTs represent the first time that fans can be rewarded just by supporting their favorite artists

We’ve been honored with the opportunity to onboard and share the music of the 236 artists on Sound, and we’re immensely excited about the countless more stories to tell.

We’re just getting started.

Just a few highlights from our first year:

  • Public Launch: our very first drop – CHILDHOOD by OSHI – sold out within seconds

  • Range Editions: introduced a new minting format that reduced pressure on artists to sell out their drops while allowing more collectors to collect their favorite songs

  • Song Splits: built Song Splits on top of the 0xSplits protocol alongside the first mixtape on Sound – Soulection+ Radio: UNTITLED 001

  • Sound Protocol: released a permissionless, open-source, and modular smart contract framework for musicians and creators

  • Albums: experimented with the first album drop  – Frameworks by Reo Cragun – which leveraged the new Sound Protocol and released on sound.xyz and reocragun.xyz at the same time

  • Sound Market: partnered with First Mate and Reservoir to launch a music-centric marketplace to easily browse, purchase, and sell Sound releases

  • Playlists: introduced playlists for users to easily curate and share their favorite songs (and show off the songs in their collection)

  • Sound Lounge Live: hosted our inaugural artist showcase in Los Angeles

  • Activity Feed: shipped a real-time feed of activity on Sound, where users can curate the content they see based on who they follow

  • Sound x hedsDAO: released hedsTAPE 10, marking the first time that the Sound Protocol was used outside of our standard upload flow

State of Sound Vol. 1

To celebrate our first anniversary, we’re dropping a mixtape and airdropping one edition to all current Sound collectors as a token of appreciation for your continued support.

The mix includes 55 songs on Sound submitted by artists in our community, beautifully mixed by Mija, sober rob, and Dot. It comprises just a fraction of the incredible music on Sound, but is representative of the diverse genres and remarkable talent on our platform.

Closing Thoughts

Sound would not exist without the continued support of our community of artists and collectors, and certainly not without the Sound team and their relentless pursuit towards unlocking creative freedom for artists.

Thank you for building alongside us – we’re excited to keep you updated on what we have in store for the next year.

- The Sound Team

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