Is NFT music back? Industries ripe for disruption are often cited as perfect targets for decentralized players to shake up. While several platforms have entered the scene, none have yet proven to be an industry powerhouse. Enter VAULT, a new platform in Solana that appears to be a major competitor to some of the biggest decentralized music players.
The platform is fresh off the heels of a $4M Series A fundraising round that brought the total raised to $13M – all amid bear market conditions. Let’s take a look at the firepower behind VAULT – and if it will be enough to hang with some of the early big dogs in the decentralized music space.
Music Muse: Can VAULT Change the Game?
We are no strangers to audio and music oriented decentralized platforms at Bitcoinist. Over the past few years, we have covered various platforms like OneOf and Audius. Beyond dedicated platforms, we’ve even seen traditional music entities get involved – like Warner Music Group paired up with OpenSea, and just this week, Rihanna released her own NFT.
While VAULT may not have the first advantage, the platform takes a very interesting mobile-friendly approach and seems to want to create a ‘standard’ in the space with VAULT’s ‘Digital Music Collectible’ (or DMC) format. It’s a unique approach that means the ‘bundle’ of music packages is ideally more appetizing than traditional album offers, or listening experiences on traditional platforms like Spotify.
However, beyond the latest Series A – and of course the product itself – there are other important qualities in the founders of the project. VAULT was created by Nigel Eccles and Rob Jones, founders of the successful sports betting platform FanDuel. Both NFTs and sports betting are very new industries, with a complex and difficult regulatory landscape to navigate. Eccles and Jones found great success in their venture with FanDuel, and will now see if they can replicate it in the audio NFT space with VAULT.
We've seen a few major competitors in the audio-based NFT space, like Audius (AUDIO), however there are only a few major players - and none have established a dominant position, leaving the door ajar for new entrants like VAULT to make a splash. | Source: AUDIO-USD on TradingView.com
Test Run: What It Looks Like Now
We know Solana has taken a very mobile-heavy approach (see: Solana phones), so it’s no surprise to go through that channel with VAULT. While the big picture focus is on NFT music and audio, the full scope of VAULT is even bigger, with photos, text, links, audio and video all expected to be supported in the long term.
For VAULT, it started with music because there was a clear gap in the industry – the business has not changed, despite the continuous development of streaming technology, over the past decade. VAULT has started a collaboration with indie artist FLETCHER to release 3,000 DMC packs.
In a statement provided to Bitcoinist, Nigel Eccles stated:
“I don’t believe that scrolling and streaming are the only meaningful fan relationships for the majority
artists… Many musicians see our format as an alternative to algorithms that
monetize music today-and they can offer fans a richer, more meaningful music experience as
well.”