As blockchain enters more consumer applications, decentralized, Ethereum-based music streaming platform Audius has reached 5 million monthly users for the first time, according to Yahoo! Finance. Audius is now one of the largest consumer-centric blockchain applications.
Audius, which debuted in 2019, has over 100,000 artists on its roster, including big names like Skrillex, Deadmau5, and Weezer. Artists on Audius can monetize their work more effectively than on centralized platforms like Spotify thanks to blockchain technology, which gives creators more ownership and clarifies licensing and metadata issues. It is also a method of directly distributing new and upcoming music to fans.
Audius does not pay artists directly, but rather provides the infrastructure needed to monetize their work, such as through the sale of non-fungible tokens. They are also rewarded through the distribution of AUDIO, Audius’ native token, whose price has been gradually rising since hitting a low of US$0.60 in mid-June following a boom in late March. At the time of publication, it was trading at $1.19 USD.
Audius’ user growth figures are comparable to the rate of growth demonstrated by streaming behemoth Spotify at the same stage of development. Spotify launched in Europe in October 2008, followed by a global launch, and by December 2012, it had 5 million paid subscribers, as well as many additional non-subscriber users.
We recently reported on another decentralized application going up against an established behemoth: Dtravel, a decentralized home-sharing platform aiming to compete with Airbnb that saw incredible user growth after launching in June, signing up 200,000 in its first month. In comparison, it took Airbnb two and a half years to sign up 50,000 people. Dtravel hopes to have 1 million properties registered by the end of its first year.
