Sona rewards fans for buying "digital twins" of songs

In October, Spotify introduced a new structure that reportedly imposes a “minimum streams per song” requirement for artists to receive a payout.

Consequently, independent artists often grapple with the challenges of gaining visibility, fair compensation, and breaking into the mainstream music industry.

As traditional streaming platforms struggle to provide equal opportunities for all artists, several market players are turning to NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as a potential solution.

One of them Sona, a Los Angeles-based Web3 streaming protocol.

Having successfully raised US$6.9 million in its seed funding round, the company, co-founded by Jennifer Lee aka TOKiMONSTA, has recently launched its streaming platform in open beta.

By harnessing the power of DeFi (decentralised finance), the ad-free streaming platform empowers artists by offering a rewards model, auctions, and an ad-free streaming experience, returning financial control to the artists themselves.

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Every SONA represents a unique “digital twin” of a particular song, exclusively owned by one individual at a time. Collectors who acquire a SONA not only secure a place on the artist's profile but also receive a 70% share of the Sona streaming rewards generated by that specific song.

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“The artist and rightsholders retain 100% ownership of the original song — so that’s a bit different and why we don’t really see ourselves as a music NFT platform. We’re focused on the relationships between artists and fans,” TOKiMONSTA told Techcrunch in an interview.

On December 7, Sona conducted its first auction, showcasing TOKiMONSTA’s Grammy-nominated track ‘Rouge’.

Learn more about Sona here.

Adrianna Cheung is Mixmag Asia’s Culture Curator, follow her on Instagram.