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The investment and Incubation arm of Binance, the Binance Labs has made a strategic investment in Audius which is a decentralized streaming protocol endowing its users the liberty to distribute, monetize as well as stream any audio content. To be more specific Binance Labs has registered a fairlead in the extension round for Audius which was worth $1.25 million.
The community-owned music sharing protocol does not have its mainnet yet. Apart from this, it had earlier raised $3.1 million in a strategic round that was led by multiple layers including Multicoin Capital and Block change Ventures in July this year. There were other big names also involved in it such as Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, and many more.
Audius has about 750,000 monthly active users with more than a million streams every month across 100,000 tracks. It has also joined hands and collaborated with top artists like deadmau5, 3LAU, and RC to help crypto cross the gorge midway. It also features a native platform token- AUDIO which is staked for security, feature access as well governance which is most important. Users can earn AUDIO to route the future iterations of the protocol. This will lead to the creation of a dynamic community that will spell ownership. This is an absolutely novel idea in the music industry which is rife with middlemen. This will mean that the artists will be able to connect directly with fans and in the coming months, the community will be exploring closely.
In a statement, the Startup commented that:
“This financing, and our upcoming mainnet launch, are key steps in the long-term roadmap towards our ultimate mission: to give everyone the freedom to share, monetize, and listen to any audio.”
Head of Binance Labs Wei Zhou said about the investment.
“Audius and its approach to mainstream crypto adoption are among the strongest we’ve seen. We’re glad to have Binance supporting this vision as we are both heavily aligned in creating a more accessible future for crypto.”
The excitement also is reverberating across Audius Its co-founder and CEO Roneil Rumburg said,
“The Audius core team couldn’t be more excited to team up with Binance through a strategic investment. The reach of their platform is unmatched in the crypto community.”
The Audius content ledger also includes audio content and metadata format specification. This is touted to be a blend of smart contracts on Ethereum and the POA network. The firm also added that the unique and different parts of the protocol function on different blockchain-based platforms.
Last month, a popular French DJ David Guetta also became a part of the virtual reality and the crypto-focused platform Sensorium Galaxy (SENSO) that encouraged and set scales for mainstream adoption for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in a huge $21.5 billion music industry which is growing exponentially.
The partnership with Binance will mark a new era of crypto adoption at a larger scale and will be the first-of-its-kind in the music industry.