The world of heavy rock is getting on the blockchain as Matt Sorum, the former drummer of Californian band Guns N’ Roses, announces he is behind the launch of a live performance and payment platform called Artbit.
The platform will use Hashgraph, a public “next generation” blockchain ledger platform, and aims to allow consumers to pay artists directly via a crypto-currency wallet without any intermediaries taking fees.
“My interest is in cutting the middleman,” Sorum told Yahoo Finance. “As we all know, with platforms like Spotify, only a very small percentage of artists can even make money on that… Any new or young artist has really got to work really hard to even get on the front page of a platform like Spotify – and even at that point you can’t really monetize your art.
Operational details on Artbit at this stage remain sparse. The platform, that claims it is ‘rewriting the rules” for artists by allowing “for direct compensation”, intends to use a gaming element and also a form of augmented reality for live performances and will launch its own Artbit crypto-token via an ICO. The platform will be for all artists, not only musicians, and it hopes to be live by the end of 2018.
“The whole crypto thing,” added Sorum. “To me it’s like the new rock and roll… Cutting out the middleman, they’ve done it with Airbnb, they’ve done it with Uber. The community is running the world now. Direct source. Traditionally what’s happened in music for decades is that the artist is the last guy to get paid. At Artbit, we’re going to make it the first guy to get paid.”
Rock on.