I’ve been feeling a bit lost about music x crypto recently. Maybe we’ve been forcing something that doesn’t *need* a blockchain. But I’m starting to see the 10yr plan… Music nfts I still believe strongly in music nfts as collectors items. Lots of people want to “own” music that's meaningful to them just like they own vinyl. But I've been trying to zoom out and think even bigger. Music as identity The biggest opportunity for mainstream adoption is figuring out how to prove and express our music identity online. Music is people’s core personality (especially young people) and they are constantly looking for ways to express this. The problem is… There’s no way to express our music identity online In the real world you can wear a New Order t-shirt and walk into any cafe, school etc. and it says something about you. This behaviour doesn't exist online. Maybe you share your Spotify Wrapped once a year but that’s it. We need a universal music identity… I originally fell in love with music nfts for this reason. It doesn't matter what platform I use, my nfts all in my wallet and I can take them around with me. I've tried different ways to show them off (I even have a metaverse gallery for my music nfts ... lol) but we need more music-native identity layers ... Bigger than that - we need new ways to capture music touchpoints beyond nfts: -> Streaming, merch, fan clubs, tickets. All time-stamped so there’s proof of how early you were. This is how we go mainstream I don’t think the average Billie Eilish fan cares about trading songs or artist coins. But they DO care about their status as a Billie Eilish fan. Who heard Ocean Eyes first, who’s been to the most gigs, who spent the most time on forums. Uniquely solvable by blockchain This is something that blockchains are uniquely positioned to solve because: Composability, interoperability and open data. If everything is onchain (fan clubs, tickets, streaming data, merch, nfts, social graphs) then we should be able to aggregate it all and create a “music identity online.” A real-time “Spotify Wrapped” but across every aspect of music. You can't do that right now because every platform keeps its data on a centralized server. Everything is downstream of this… If there’s onchain proof that I’m a HUGE Billie Eilish fan (bought multiple tickets, checked in at her Coachella stage, joined the fan club, listened early, went to her first shows) … Then maybe I automatically get first listen to her new single when I log onto my streaming service. Maybe I get priority booking when tickets are released. Maybe I get discount merch. All automatically triggered when I connect my wallet. This is a fucking HUGE project Part of me feels exhausted at the thought of it… These are massive incumbent industries with A LOT of power (Spotify, Live Nation etc.) that don’t want things to work like this. We either have to rebuild them or create enough leverage and demand to convince them to build on open crypto rails. This is a multi-decade, monumental effort. But then again, so is rebuilding banks and defi, and isn’t that why we’re all here? How do we do it? Honestly … not totally sure. I’m spending a lot of time working on @OscillatorInc which is a music data protocol thinking about how to open this up. Feels like a ridiculously ambitious and crazy plan. Meanwhile, still buying music nfts. Still bringing music onchain. Every day we add a little bit more leverage against the old system. No idea if anyone is reading this far but this is where my head is at and maybe this stream of consciousness was useful, and would love people to pick holes in it. 🫡