The next step for Napster’s streaming music service into the Web3 world and also metaverse newscis to acquire the startup Mint Songs.
Napster said it was getting into blockchain for the first time in June of last year, when it said it would release a token using the Algorand blockchain. Today, Napster says that the Mint Songs purchase will be the basis for its first Web3 offerings.
Garrett Hughes will work as an advisor for Napster. He helped start Mint Songs and was its CTO.
Hughes said in a statement, “As we looked for a partner that could take what we’ve built over the last two years and give artists a true marketplace for their assets where millions of fans are already active, it became abundantly clear that Jon and Napster have the vision to finally take Web3 music to the mainstream.”
Napster says that the new platform will have digital collectibles that will bring artists and their fans closer together by building a community around the artist and their music and letting the artist interact to their fanbase.
“The hope is that we can bring this innovation to the mainstream and get consumers—regular fans—just doing it,” Napster CEO Jon Vlassopulos told Decrypt in an interview. “So it’s almost going back to that [point] where you had collectible downloads that were scarce, and it just wasn’t on-chain.”
The new company Napster Ventures made its first deal when it acquired Mint Songs. The company says its goal is to support, invest in, and buy the best Web3 music entrepreneurs.
“We’ve been in the market since the end of September, October, and we’ve had half a billion media hits—it’s been nothing but positive in terms of the brand,” Vlassopulos said.
Vlassopulos says that bringing Napster to Web3 is a great chance for it to once again be a disruptor.
“We were the original disrupter—there’s a feeling of ownership that we’re coming back to disrupt again,” he said.
In May 2022, Algorand, a blockchain company, and Hivemind Capital Partners, which is run by Matt Zhang, acquired Napster. The paid streaming music service kept running. Vlassopulos became the CEO of Napster in September 2022. The firm then started making plans to acquire Web3 and digital music startup projects.
“We are excited for Napster to be a central player in the music Web3 ecosystem, and acquiring Mint Songs is a great foundational step,” founder and managing partner of Hivemind Matt Zhang said in a statement. “The combination of Napster’s continued innovation that powers the platform currently, along with Mint Songs’ technology IP and expertise, will help drive Web3 innovation for the music industry.”
Napster says that it wants to add the technology of Mint Songs to its platform and start selling products and services that Mint Songs had already planned. Vlassopulos says that the first version of the new Napster platform will be released in the second quarter of this year.
“It feels like Web3 was around for a decade, and it’s ready for consumer success,” Vlassopulos said. “So the bet is that, as 20 years ago, music was the on-ramp to digital, why shouldn’t music again be the on-ramp for the Web3 consumer?”
Content Source: decrypt.com
Cover Image Source: decrypt.co
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