Token Gating 101:
- Creating bonus or exclusive content
- Creating special tokens that act like a secret password
- Only those with the secret password can access the content
Better Community & Artist Revenue?
The problem artists struggle with, is their income and exposure being dependent on the giants we know as streaming platforms.
Spotify decides what to pay artists.
Spotify decides which songs go on their native and hugely popular playlists.
Spotify decides which albums to push / promote in-app.
This forces artists to focus more of their artistic efforts on entrepreneurial attempts at generating a living such as merchandise sales, touring, and more.
This takes creative juices and energy away from artists.
NFTs To The Rescue?
Dozens of artists have cashed in on NFTs, most of them succesful due to the re-sale nature of the tokens, which introduces financial upside to being a fan / collector.
Devin
Tory Lanez made $1 million in 1 minute, in 2021, by selling his new album as an NFT for $1. Many more artists followed this direction.
The last few years clearly showed people who have a platform, that NFTs can be a great modern and fun way to monetize their efforts.
However, previous celebrity NFT efforts have been for the most part, low-effort cash grabs. Most drops to date have been just one-dimensional NFT projects with a "collect this and sell it for more" mindset, and nothing else.
Spotify x NFTs
Spotify has been doing their research on NFTs.
They realized that these tokens are more than just a collectible, tokens can be utilized as a key that opens gates or paywalls, giving token-holders exclusive access to any type of content or even in-person event.
So Spotify began testing with a select few creators, a new feature: Token Gated Content.
Token gating is cool because we can take an older, forgotten NFT like the Tory Lanez 2021 NFT album release, and these tokens new life, and new utility.
Now, Tory Lanez could allow these token holders to connect their crypto wallets to Spotify and get access to playlists or songs, or podcasts that others don't have access to!
Or perhaps podcast creators can give their token holders early access to new podcast episodes, while other Spotify listeners have to wait an extra few days to hear the same pod.
Endless Opportunities
Pandora's box has been opened, and token gating content is only getting started.
Not only can artists have more effective monetization, but their fans can also benefit financially from owning these utility tokens that grant access to the universe of content by their favorite artists or podcast creators.
