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The way we create and consume music is being disrupted by the blockchain, and more specifically – by the tokens, both fungible and NFT, that can be created on it. The NFTs grant a true ownership of the underlying asset, be it a music track, a concert ticket, or a right to interact with your favourite artist. Fungible tokens contribute to creating a fair environment, where both artists and their fans can get a just reward for their participation.



This is what web3 means in practice, and this is how it progressively helps the music industry to get rid of the gatekeepers, allowing musicians to finance their work, get fairly remunerated for their streams, sell concert tickets more efficiently, and engage with their fans in a myriad of new ways 🎶



<h2>Selling music 💸</h2>



Music NFTs are on the rise, as more and more famous artists are releasing NFT albums and singles. Usually issued as addition to the traditional channels, these NFTs come with collectible artwork and special perks, such as front-row tickets to the artist’s shows.



Music NFTs are becoming an important additional monetization source: in 2021, Kings of Leon’s NFT album hauled in about $2.5 million, DJ 3LAU’s – $11.6 million…



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NFT albums are becoming ever more popular, and record labels try to not miss out.



This August Warner Records UK partnered with music NFT marketplace&nbsp;<a href="https://serenade.co/">Serenade</a>&nbsp;to launch a new music format they called Digital Pressings – an NFT featuring full length audio together with unique artworks and unlockable rewards.



The first band to try this format was none other than the iconic&nbsp;Muse, selling out 1’000 NFTs in just 25 minutes.



Other than Serenade, music NFTs can be created and traded on specialized platforms, such as <a href="https://async.art/">Async</a>, <a href="https://www.sound.xyz/">S</a><a href="https://www.sound.xyz/">ound</a><a href="https://www.sound.xyz/">, </a><a href="https://app.rcrdshp.com/?__cf_chl_tk=2cgq5zElZcA9KDCW_rZ858MaQZfntCy4xGA8ursd9YU-1670839304-0-gaNycGzNCv0">Rcrdshp</a>, <a href="https://web3.smartlabel.media/">Smart Label</a>… as well as generic marketplaces, such as OpenSea or Rarible.



<h2>Investing in music 📈</h2>



NFTs are programmable and can be used to give its owner the right to collect a share of its royalties. This quality is exploited by&nbsp;<a href="https://royal.io/">Royal</a>, a marketplace that allows its users to buy and trade music NFTs and earn a share of the attached royalties alongside the artists, as the music streams on platforms like Spotify or Apple Music.



Royal is a great tool for financing young artists, but it also already features tracks of already famous ones: rapper Logic, Diplo, The Chainsmokers, and 3LAU (the DJ is actualy Royal’s founder).



Other platforms that propose their versions of music investment include&nbsp;<a href="https://info.emanate.live/">Emanate</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://opulous.org/">Opulous</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://decent.xyz/">Decent</a>.



<h2>Streaming music 🎧</h2>



<a href="https://audius.co/">Audius</a>, another web3 music platform, ambitions to become a streaming service in its own right.



Audius promises a new type of revenue distribution, where users pay artists directly when streaming their music, ensuring a level of revenue transparency that traditional services like Spotify cannot provide. This system, however, is yet to prove itself: for the moment $AUDIO token is used purely as encouragement and only top 5 artists are actually paid every week.



This summer Audius suffered a hack, with $6 million worth of $AUDIO stolen and platform’s governance dynamic impaired (the attacker succeeded at transferring the entirety of the Audius community pool to their wallet). The hack only added insult to injury, as $AUDIO was falling fast together with the larger the crypto market crash and&nbsp;losing over 90%&nbsp;in the last 12 months.



Despite all this, Audius shows that there’s a real interest in its value proposition: the platform now counts around 250,000 artists (among whom Katy Perry, Jason Derulo and 3LAU) and 7.5 million listeners. It also signed a&nbsp;partnership with TikTok, allowing its creators to directly upload their Audius songs to the social network.



<h2>Selling Tickets 🎫</h2>



Selling concert tickets as NFTs not only streamlines the process, bypassing middlemen, but also&nbsp;help fighting bad players in the secondary ticketing market. Platforms like&nbsp;<a href="https://yh.io/">Yellowheart</a>,&nbsp;can inscribe the rules for ticket sales into the smart contract of an associated NFT, precising the price of a seat, a maximum reseller price…



Selling tickets as NFTs can also help better distribute the revenue. Their smart contracts can be programmed to send an agreed percentage of the price to the artist, promoter, the venue… and do it not only for the initial ticket sale, but for every consecutive resale too.



NFTs are also a great way to organize communities, and <a href="https://festival.afterparty.com/">Afterparty</a> and <a href="https://www.fwb.help/">Friends With Benefits</a> use this property to token-gate IRL community experiences.



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<h2>Engaging with fans 🤗</h2>



NFTs offer a new type of artist-fan relationship, which can go beyond exclusive merch or meets & greets.



Steve Aoki&nbsp;has created&nbsp;<a href="https://a0k1verse.xyz/">Aok1verse</a>, a whole NFT-gated virtual world with numerous perks, ranging from live chats with the DJ to co-creating a song.



<a href="https://pixelynx.io/">Pixelynx</a>&nbsp;is a platform that explores new ways of music consumption and experiment in bringing gaming, augmented reality and metaverse elements into the music space. Founded by DJs deadmau5 and Richie Hawtin, yesterday Pixelynx was acquired by Animoca Brands, a web3 behemoth.



This is a creator economy, and services like&nbsp;<a href="https://rally.io/">Rally</a>&nbsp;enable any artist to launch their own token-fueled crypto economies to finance their work and engage with fans.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fancircles.com/">FanCircles</a>&nbsp;allows an easy launch of a customized fan experience app, and web3 publishing platform&nbsp;<a href="https://mirror.xyz/">Mirror</a>&nbsp;helps crowdfund and spread the word.



🎵🎵🎵



The web3 music potential is huge, and new high-profile projects appear regularly:



This spring&nbsp;John Legend’s music NFT platform project raised $7.5 million.



In summer,&nbsp;Napster, the legendary P2P streaming service of the 2000s, shared its plans to launch its own token. Previously acquired by Algorand and Hivemind, it is now poised to explore even more web3 opportunities for artists and fans.



Last week Warner Music Group announced a partnership with Polygon and&nbsp;LGND, an e-commerce builder, to create a music and collectibles platform.



The classic Windows media player&nbsp;Winamp&nbsp;added NFT support…



The music industry is ripe for disruption, and the profusion of web3 projects shows it is already underway 🚀

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This article was first featured in our Newsletter. Subscribe <a href="https://d.center/newsletter">here </a>to receive it directly in your mailbox every Monday



Fashion is one of the industries that stands to benefit greatly from the blockchain and web3, and in so many different ways! From product authentication to the new types of product - phygitals, AR and VR garments - passing by the new retail and customer engagement practices, crypto tools are being increasingly used on various stages of a fashion business cycle.



Here are some of the most interesting use cases. Let’s go!



<h1>Blockchain for product certification</h1>



One of the most discussed blockchain qualities in its early days of fame (around 2017) was immutability, which made it so well-suited for all types of certification purposes. Some of you can remember newspaper headlines mentioning this or that retail/manufacturing/logistic group turning to blockchain for authenticating their products or better tracking the supply chains.



Over time, we learned to distinguish public blockchains (now simply “blockchains”) from&nbsp;private/consortium blockchains, which are not decentralized and do not make part of the crypto space, and it turned out that the majority of the abovementioned companies were used the latter. The initial excitement has vanished, but opened the doors for new initiatives to start trying out certification projects on (public) blockchains.



Luxury and fashion followed this process. In 2017, a group of companies founded&nbsp;Arianee, a consortium blockchain aimed at providing proof of authenticity, with some famous clients like Vacheron Constantin and Breitling ⌚using its services. In 2021, the&nbsp;Aura Blockchain Consortium&nbsp;was created by the three luxury giants: LVMH, Prada Group, Cartier, later joined by the OTB Group and Mercedes-Benz. Aura too aims at tackling the traceability and authenticity tasks, but like Arianee, it is not public, and both their functionalities are limited (as Vitalik Buterin has put it, a non-public blockchain is a little more than a “glorified database”).



Meanwhile,&nbsp;new types of web3 product certification appear. In 2020, a licensed Nike manufacturer Chase Shiel partnered with a retailer The Kickz Stand to produce a limited edition of Nike sneakers 👟 with a tracking chip powered by VeChain. This was not an official partnership with Nike, but the idea has taken root.



In the end of 2022, famous NFT project Azuki sold 9 NFTs coupled with physical skateboards 🛹 (golden no less 😅 ) certified by embedded chips. These “physically backed tokens” allow NFT owners to not only verify the product’s authenticity, but also record and transfer their ownership when needed.



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<h1>Web3 for a new type of product</h1>



The development of digital and web3 fashion allowed the creation of 3 new product types: phygitals, AR and VR garments.



<h2>Phygitals</h2>



Physical goods coupled with NFTs (like Azuki’s skateboards) or other digital assets are known as&nbsp;phygitals. The reason for creating a phygital is not always related to authentication: some brands, like&nbsp;Prada, use it for enhancing client experience.



Since December 2019, the legendary Italian House releases every month a limited edition (physical) shirt 👕 coupled with an NFT that gives access to an exclusive Discord community and other member-only events (some holders are even invited to the fashion shows).



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<h2>AR fashion</h2>



Looking at the world through the lens of you phone can sometimes surprise you, especially when the AR (augmented reality) magic kicks in.



AR fashion develops quickly, with most outstanding examples being developed by the Institute of Digital Fashion in London, RTFKT (digital fashion company bought by Nike) and crypto-native The Fabricant, who sell NFT garments that can be seen through a Snapchat filter 🦋



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<h2>VR fashion</h2>



The ultimate stage of digital fashion – which at the moment still seems far – will be happening in the&nbsp;metaverse. As the virtual realities like Decentraland (decentralized) or Fortnite (centralized) are developing, more people will spend time there and of course would like to stand out from the crowd.



While companies like Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Brown bet on both metaverse types and launch their digital clothes on Meta (not web3), others, like&nbsp;Gucci&nbsp;and&nbsp;Dolce&Gabbana, create NFT garments 🥻 that can be worn in Decentraland or The Sandbox (web3).



In March 2022, Decentraland even hosted its very first Fashion Week.



Of course, VR fashion is still in its very early stages, notably because the metaverses are still unattractive and lacking interesting activities. But the potential is believed in by many, and fashion companies are actively developing their web3 departments to be ready when the mass adoption kicks in.



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Both AR and VR clothes are extremely interesting for fashion companies: high margins, no need for physical production and storage, low ecological impact 🌱, and finally – endless creativity not limited by the laws of physics.



<h1>Web3 for a new retail</h1>



New products often open&nbsp;new sales channels, and web3 fashion is no exception.



NFT marketplaces, metaverses, digital games and basically any website can act as retailers, and using cryptocurrencies opens them for the whole world. As an additional bonus, companies can set a royalty percentage, which they will receive each time their NFT is sold on the secondary market.



Fashion Houses can also tap into a&nbsp;new clientele: from web3 degens (self-assigned term for die-hard crypto enthusiasts) to the House fans who cannot afford a physical item.



A prominent example of a luxury house tapping into the degen culture was Tiffany with its CryptoPunk collection issued in summer 2022. Available only to CryptoPunk NFT holders, Tiffany NFTs allowed to order a physical pendant incrusted with precious stones 💎 featuring their CryptoPunk for a modest amount of $50’000 (in ETH equivalent, of course).



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Finally, web3 fashion offers a myriad of&nbsp;new ways of engaging with clients. Exclusive experiences, like Prada’s, artpieces like Gucci’s, or even the possibility to create your own NFT fashion collection, like on Nike’s soon-to-be-released&nbsp;SWOOSH&nbsp;platform. With crypto tools, a fashion brand can make their client’s journey unique – the Holy grail for which many Houses fight.



As the crypto space develops, the use cases in the fashion industry multiply and become more interesting, which in turn attracts more people… Is that a virtuous circle in the making? 😎



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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://web.d.center/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/explore-l-1024x402.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-1255"/></figure>



Blockchain is a recent invention. It is still in early stages of its development, and yet a burgeoning new blockchain-related industry is already emerging. Improving the technology, finding new use cases, developing the ecosystem… and of course looking to change the world are some of these new endeavors.



This section is dedicated to exploring different facets of the blockchain and bringing answers to an array of questions one might have - from “Why do we need it” to “How does it work” or “What is it used for”. The structure of Explore descending from general concepts to specific notions, you are welcome to choose your own path according to your interests and go down the rabbit hole. 



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<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-philosophy" class="ek-link">Blockchain philosophy</a></h2>



Why are crypto enthusiasts so enthusiastic? Blockchain is not a trivial technology, but the one that has a potential to change the very way our societies operate. Every organization and every community rely on trusted third parties, responsible for storing and managing data, with all the related risks . Replacing these trusted third parties with a decentralized data handling mechanism would eliminate much of the system’s deficiencies, and that’s exactly what blockchain does. 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin" class="ek-link">Bitcoin</a></h2>



The very first implementation of the blockchain, Bitcoin was created to solve the deficiencies of the monetary system and replace the so-called fiat money (dependent on Central Banks) with cryptocurrency, a completely independent alternative that runs on a decentralized peer-to-peer network.&nbsp; 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-fundamentals" class="ek-link">Blockchain fundamentals</a></h2>



A blockchain is a collection of technologies and methods that allow gathering data into a ledger, which is stored and updated by the network’s participants (which anyone can become). Data handling is its main role, although it also allows embedding more complex programs and running them in a decentralized way.&nbsp; 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-in-practice" class="ek-link">Blockchain in practice</a></h2>



Most blockchain encounters today are about cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin and many others that have appeared since. However the understanding of the technology becoming increasingly subtle, other blockchain real-world use cases appear, notably with the development of decentralized applications, or Dapps. A developed ecosystem makes these functionalities readily available and opens up previously restricted-access industries, such as finance.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-regulation" class="ek-link">Crypto regulation</a></h2>



Blockchain and its products are becoming an increasingly important part of our lives and our economies, which inevitably attracts the regulators’ attention. This is not a bad thing, though, for the right laws can support the technology and protect its users against related scams. Depending on a country however the attitude varies greatly, from progressive to autocratic. 



<h2>Beginner’s path </h2>



If you do not yet have a clear idea of what it is you would like to explore, let us suggest you a suite of 8 articles that will smoothly introduce you to the world of cryptoassets and Bitcoin in particular: it will help you to understand what it is used for, how it works and some necessary tools allowing to buy some of it.



<a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-philosophy" class="ek-link">Blockchain philosophy</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin" class="ek-link">Bitcoin</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/how-does-bitcoin-work" class="ek-link">How does Bitcoin work</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin-mechanism " class="ek-link">Bitcoin mechanism</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-in-practice" class="ek-link">Blockchain in practice</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/blockhain-ecosystem" class="ek-link">Blockchain ecosystem</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-wallets" class="ek-link">Crypto wallets</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-exchanges " class="ek-link">Crypto exchanges</a>

Some blockchains were created to enable cryptocurrencies. Others serve primarily as smart contract platforms, allowing to decentralize digital economy: online platforms, financial flows, collaboration... and of course the nascent Web3 sector.



The number of blockchain use cases is constantly growing, as does its ecosystem.



This is a high level view on what blockchain in practice looks like today. 



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Cryptocurrencies </h2>



With <a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin" class="ek-link">Bitcoin</a>, the first practical application of the blockchain was currency, or more precisely “P2P electronic cash system”, as described by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. Invented in order to remedy the failing monetary system, the blockchain proved itself to be particularly well suited for such a role, providing an independent, immutable and transparent transaction ledger.&nbsp;



Following Bitcoin, new <a href="https://d.center/explore/cryptocurrencies" class="ek-link">cryptocurrencies</a>-focused blockchains have emerged, trying to ameliorate this or that aspect of the blockchain: transaction throughput like Litecoin, privacy like Monero… 



Some cryptocurrencies have appeared as an extension of a community, like the Doge memecoin.



Other cryptocurrencies, created as tokens (and not native coins), serve as representations of fiat currencies on the blockchain. They are called stablecoins, the biggest ones being USD-pegged Tether and Circle.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Smart contract blockchains</h2>



Currency is not the only thing that can profit from the blockchain's decentralization.



Virtually any digital system (hence most of organisation that use them) can benefit from eliminating central authority.



This is achieved through the use of <a href="https://d.center/en/explore/smart-contrats" class="ek-link">smart contracts</a> - autonomous and self-executing programs that run on the blockchain. Smart contracts allow the development of DApps, or decentralized applications, and power the emerging web3 sector.



The first and most popular smart contract platform is Ethereum blockchain, but it has many competitors: Solana, Cosmos, BNB Chain... etc



The difference between a Cryptocurrency blockchain and a Smart contract blockchain is now rather theoretical and can be understood only by questioning the blockchain’s purpose: whether it was conceived to support a currency or to host elaborate smart contracts. Both types of blockchains need a native coin to pay the network nodes for running the protocol, however in cryptocurrencies’ case the native coin is a goal in itself, whereas for smart contract blockchains it is a payment for running smart contracts. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Blockchain use cases</h2>



Almost every traditional economic sector can use blockchain's qualities.



⛓️ Decentralized systems are intrinsically fairer than centralized ones: their transparency and self-executing nature are much better in redistributing value and allowing the users to be true and sole owners of their data. This quality is substantial when it comes to online platforms, be it social media, cloud computing or ride hailing.



⛓️ Blockchain being a transparent and immutable ledger, it is also particularly suitable for data certification purposes.



⛓️ Smart contracts can automate numerous processes, not only increasing the overall cost and time effectiveness, but also providing users with a guarantee that no one can unilaterally change the rules underlying the DApp.&nbsp;This notably enables the new type of trustless collaboration within DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Orgnizations.



⛓️ Finally, the blockchain structure allows fast and easy data and values transfer, without any borders or other limitations. This quality is highly appreciated in finance, and many traditional players have already incorporated crypto into their offer: exchange, custody, asset management, asset tokenization... Besides, a crypto-native version of finance, known as the DeFi, is developing very fast.







<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Web3</h2>



Blockchain and cryptoassets can be used both in centralized and decentralized way. 



The exact boundary between the two is not always clear, but usually when the core operations happen on-chain, the value is transparently distributed, and governance decisions are taken by the community, we can speak about <a href="https://d.center/en/explore/web3" class="ek-link">Web3</a>, a new era of the internet where users are in control. 



The most obvious example of web2 using blockchain vs web3 are exchanges: a centralized one like Binance is centrally managed and controls its users' cryptoassets, while a decentralized exchange like Uniswap never gets in the possession of its users' funds and evolves according to its DAO's decisions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Blockchain ecosystem</h2>



Blockchain is a collective endeavor, and it needs an extensive ecosystem to function and to serve its purposes. 



Numerous products and services have therefore been developed: <a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-wallets" class="ek-link">wallets </a>to interact with the blockchain, <a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-exchanges" class="ek-link">exchanges</a><a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-exchanges" class="ek-link"> </a>to buy and sell crypto, <a href="https://d.center/en/explore/oracles" class="ek-link">oracles</a> to interact with the real world and feed information to smart contracts, not to mention the miners who maintain the network, or interoperability protocols connecting different blockchains. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"> </h2>

Web3 has become a buzzword recently, often misunderstood, misplaced and misjudged. 



To understand this phenomenon - that we believe has an enormous potential - let’s start with some key definitions.



Blockchain&nbsp;is a shared distributed database run by independent nodes.



To motivate these nodes to maintain the blockchain, it issues a&nbsp;native coin&nbsp;– a&nbsp;cryptocurrency.



Many blockchains allow users to issue their own cryptocurrencies and more broadly – cryptoassets. These are known as&nbsp;tokens, either fungible (like a stablecoin), or non-fungible (an&nbsp;NFT).



For example, $ETH is a native coin of the Ethereum blockchain, while Tether, a company, can issue/burn fungible tokens that it engages to redeem for $1 – the stablecoins. A university can issue diplomas in form of NFT. Anyone can create tokens and assign them the value they wish, but the native coins and their value depend only on the blockchain.



Many traditional services use cryptoassets in one way or another, but a growing sector re-imagines its operations and products by putting the blockchain at their core. This sector is called&nbsp;web3.



Why “web3”? The name reflects the evolution of the Internet:



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://web.d.center/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/web123.png" alt="" class="wp-image-5484"/></figure>



The term was coined in 2014 by Gavin Wood, Ethereum co-founder, who described web3 as a “decentralized online system based on blockchain”.



Crypto investor Packy McCormick has given a more romantic definition, calling web3 “the internet owned by the builders and users, orchestrated with tokens.”



This is how we see these notions related:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://web.d.center/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/use-of-crypto-web2-and-web3.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-5481"/></figure>



The notion of web3 is still very young, and it is often difficult to draw a line between web2 using crypto and web3. What degree of decentralization does a service need to be considered a web3? There’s no clear answer yet.



The understanding evolves together with the industry and its use cases. Let’s look at a couple of examples to get a better idea.



💰 Web2 finance: Kraken, a centralized exchange that keeps users’ crypto and is managed by its board of directors.



💰 Web3 finance: Uniswap, a decentralized exchange that does not keep users’ crypto and is managed by its DAO – a decentralized autonomous organization with tokens that carry voting rights.



👯 Web2 social media: Twitter that has a special avatar shape for verified NFTs.



👯 Web3 social media: Lens protocol that allows users to own their data and connections and to carry them across social platforms.



🎮 Web2 gaming: Ubisoft releasing additional gear for its Tom Clancy game as NFTs.



🎮 Web3 gaming: Axie Infinity, where all characters are upgradeable and tradeable NFTs, a community governance system is underway.



Here’s the above graph with examples, to give you more perspective:



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