Solana-Based Music Marketplace Launches With Aspirations to Tokenize Royalties

Nashville, Tennessee-based Solo Music is launching the Solana network’s first music marketplace for artists to monetize their work as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and will incorporate tokenized royalties in the coming months.

The announcement follows the recent story involving DJ Justin “3LAU” Blau launching the Royal platform that will tokenize song royalties as tokens for anyone to buy and trade.

Solo Music founder and CEO Barron Solomon hopes to compete on this front with lower barriers to entry for users with no knowledge or experience of crypto or blockchain.

While Solo will support Solana digital wallets Sollet and Phantom, for example, fans will not be required to already possess a crypto wallet to use the platform. NFTs can be purchased in U.S. dollars using a credit card as an alternative.

Read more: 3LAU Raises $16M to Tokenize Music Royalties for Artists and Fans

“We can charge somebody $10-$20 for an NFT to get them introduced to the space, and then, maybe as they discover blockchain for the first time, they are more interested in investing in tokenized royalties or moving into something a bit more speculative,” Solomon told CoinDesk in an interview.

Tokenization of royalties represents “phase three” of Solo’s launch, following NFTs and concert ticketing. Solomon told CoinDesk that while tokenizing royalties does not present any particular complications from a technical point of view, there are legal challenges.

“A lot of the issues have more to do with the contracts that are in place with all of the major publishers and the individuals that control those royalty streams,” he told CoinDesk, adding:

The platform will launch with country songwriter Eric Paslay and producer Tommy Cecil, both of whom will release several NFTs starting next month.