Music NFT marketplaces are currently one of the most sought-after and promising trends in development. They allow artists to sell their music directly to fans without the involvement of various labels and other intermediaries. In contrast, fans can support their idol and purchase exclusive pieces of music. This article will tell you how such platforms work and how to create your NFT marketplace to help you master this exciting niche.
What is a music NFT marketplace?
Music NFT marketplaces are online platforms where buyers and sellers can trade music NFTs. These marketplaces are similar to traditional online stores like eBay or Amazon but designed specifically for music NFTs. Some popular music NFT marketplaces include Audius, Triptcip, Noizd Story.Xyz, Sound.Xyz, Nifty Gateway, OpenSea, and Rarible. Developing such an NFT marketplace requires expertise in blockchain technology, smart contract development, non-interchangeable token development, and user interface design.
Each music NFT is a unique digital asset with a unique digital signature. This signature confirms ownership and authorship of the musical work and defines its characteristics and features. Owners of musical NFTs receive exclusive rights to use and dispose of these works, which may include selling, licensing, collecting, and other actions
Benefits of NFT marketplaces for musicians:
- Selling without intermediaries. Musicians can sell their music directly through music NFT marketplaces without intermediaries, earning a more significant share of sales profits than with the traditional approach.
- Fair pricing. Musicians can set their prices for their music, licenses, and collectibles based on value and demand.
- Additional sources of income. Musicians can earn income from the subsequent resale of their NFT tokens on the secondary market, earning a commission on secondary sales of the NFT assets they create.
- New Audience. The music NFT marketplace provides an opportunity to attract new fans and collectors who are interested in exclusive music offerings.
The benefits of NFT marketplaces for fans:
- Supporting your favorite artists. Buying NFT music tokens allows fans to directly support their favorite musicians without having to share profits with labels and streaming services.
- Access to exclusive offers. Listeners have the opportunity to purchase unique and exclusive music NFTs. This can be an autographed NFT, an exclusive album edition, a concert ticket with a VIP seat and backstage pass, and even a custom song.
- Collecting music tokens. Fans can buy and collect unique NFTs that have artistic or historical value and can rise in value over time.
- Participation in the music community. Music NFT marketplaces allow fans to interact with artists and other fans, discuss music, and participate in unique music events.
How does an NFT Marketplace run?
Music NFT marketplaces operate based on blockchain, which ensures transparency, security, and authenticity of purchase and sale transactions of NFT music assets. The technical infrastructure of a marketplace includes a
blockchain platform, smart contracts, digital wallets, and a front-end interaction between artists and buyers. This technological framework guarantees transaction transparency, the authenticity of ownership of music NFTs, and the security and protection of the personal data of all marketplace participants.
Here's how the release and sale of music NFTs occurs.
1. Creating a musical NFT:
- An artist chooses a piece of music they want to turn into an NFT.
- Using the special functionality of the music NFT marketplace, the artist creates an NFT asset and links an audio file to it, specifying information about the piece: its title, description, cover art, and other metadata.
- The NFT asset receives a unique digital signature that attests to its authorship and authenticity.
2. Putting the NFT for sale:
- The artist picks how the NFT is sold (at a fixed price or through an auction) and includes or turns off royalties.
- The music NFT is published in the NFT Marketplace showcase, where other users can see and purchase it.
3. Buying and owning a music NFT:
- A buyer interested in an NFT makes a bid or buys the asset immediately, using their cryptocurrency wallet to pay.
- The transaction is recorded on the blockchain, confirming the transfer of ownership of the musical NFT from the artist to the buyer.
- The buyer becomes the owner of the music NFT and gains access to the digital work, which they can listen to, download, and use per the rights granted by the NFT.
4. Secondary Market Sale:
- The owner of a music NFT can resell their token on the secondary market if the music NFT marketplace and the terms of sale (which are set by each artist) provide for such an option.
- Selling a music NFT on the secondary market is the same as on the primary market; only in this case, royalties can be paid to the artist (for example, 10% of each transaction on the secondary market goes to the musician).
- Each secondary market transaction is also recorded in the blockchain, which allows the ownership history to be tracked and the original sales to be determined.
How to develop your Music NFT Marketplace?
Creating your own NFT marketplace is a challenging but exciting process that opens the door to a world of innovative solutions for the music industry. Music NFT Marketplaces enable musicians, collectors, and fans to interact, trade, and break new ground for music. Below are steps
to help you develop your unique NFT Marketplace and contribute to the future of the music industry. Let's get started!
Step 1: Select the niche.
The first step in
creating your NFT marketplace is to choose the right niche. A niche will determine your target audience, unique offering, and the competitive advantages of your marketplace. Here are some possible niches
for launching your NFT marketplace:
- Music albums and songs. Users can purchase music albums and individual songs, unique album editions, gaining access to exclusive content, rare tracks, or bonus material not available on conventional music platforms.
- Autographs, wishes, and greetings. Allow users to get a standard or personalized autograph, greeting, or a wish from their favorite musician, which they can display in their virtual collections NFT, social networks, and messengers.
- Digital photos and artwork. Artists typically complement their NFT music with an audio and visual artistry package. Fans can collect NFT digital photos and artwork inspired by the music of their favorite artists.
- Video content (music videos, concerts, interviews). The tokenization of video clips, interviews, shows, and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage provides the opportunity to preserve unique moments from their favorite artist's journeys. These NFT videos provide an immersive and personal connection between the artist and their audience and can be sold with non-interchangeable tokens.
- Concert and Event Tickets. Create a marketplace where artists can offer NFT tokens that entitle them to attend concerts and access exclusive offline and online events and backstage passes.
- Collaborations and remixes. Create a platform where musicians can offer NFT tokens to collaborate or sell the rights to remix and sample their tracks.
Step 2: Select the developer.
Choosing a reliable and qualified blockchain developer is one of the most essential steps in creating an NFT platform. The chosen company's expertise, experience, and professionalism determine the project's success and the achievement of your goals; when searching for such a developer, pay attention to the candidate's portfolio, reviews and recommendations, and their understanding of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFT technologies.
For example, you can turn to Merehead. Our team has extensive experience in web application development and specializes in creating NFT marketplaces and blockchain technologies. We will help you to create a scalable and secure music NFT marketplace with wide functionality based on your business requirements. Working with our company guarantees high quality, a professional approach, and attention to every detail while developing your NFT marketplace.
Step 3: Choose the blockchain platform.
Next, you must choose a blockchain based on which your NFT marketplace will work. This can be a single blockchain (faster and cheaper to implement) or integration with several popular networks, such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Cardano, Solana, Tezos, and Flow. Your choice will depend on your marketplace requirements, the scale of operations, technical capabilities, and the ecosystem you want to recreate. Carefully examine each platform, its advantages, and disadvantages to make an informed choice and ensure the long-term success of your NFT solution.
Step 4: Determine the functions your marketplace requires.
The Music NFT Marketplace provides features and functions that help musicians, listeners, and collectors interact with NFT music assets. Here are some of the key features a music NFT marketplace can provide:
Creating and selling NFTs. This feature is the backbone of the music NFT marketplace. It requires choosing a suitable blockchain platform like Ethereum, Solana, or Cardano and developing a smart contract to create unique tokens representing musical compositions. Essential steps in this process include creating metadata for each NFT, defining ownership and royalties, and integrating with various payment systems to process transactions of buying and selling musical assets in the form of NFTs.
The showcase for selling music NFTs on sound.xyz.
Advanced search and filtering. Your users should be able to perform advanced searches for NFT music based on various criteria, such as genre, artist, album, price, etc. Filters can also be provided to refine your search results so that users can find exactly what they are looking for. This will increase the appeal of your NFT music marketplace and improve the user experience.
The search engine on noizd.com NFT marketplace.
Buying and Collecting NFTs. This feature allows users to purchase unique music NFT assets. Its implementation requires developing an interface where users can browse available NFTs, search by criteria, and make purchases. It is also important to ensure transaction security and storage of NFTs in the user's wallet.
The purchase screen of music NFT on sound.xyz.
NFT auctions and direct sales. This functionality allows users to sell and buy tokens through auctions or at a fixed price. To implement it, you must create an auction trading and management system where users can set up bids and offer prices for NFTs. It is vital to ensure transparency and security in the auction and trading process.
Licensing and revenue sharing. The licensing option allows musicians to determine the terms of use of their musical works, copyright compliance, and protection of artists' interests. To implement this option, smart contracts that determine the size and distribution rules of royalties from the sale of musical NFTs on the secondary market should be developed.
An example of an automatic revenue distribution of royalty on an NFT marketplace.
Integration with other services: The NFT Music Marketplace can integrate with other music services, such as streaming platforms or social media, to provide a wider audience and user experience. This can include playing music from the NFT marketplace on popular platforms, sync playlists, or share content with other services.
Support for a variety of formats. You should also choose which music formats your platform will support, such as MP3, WAV, FLAC, etc. Your NFT music marketplace should work with all popular formats and still be able to add a new format if your users want it.
Curation and Recommendations. This feature helps users discover new music and explore music NFTs. To implement it, you must develop recommendation algorithms based on user preferences and interests and allow curators and music experts to make recommendations and edit the content on the platform.
Notifications and messages: Users can be notified about new releases, events, promotions, and other important updates on the Marketplace. This helps users stay up-to-date with the latest news and features the NFT Music Marketplace offers.
Analytics and Reports. This feature provides users and the Music NFT Marketplace administrators with statistical information and reports. This can include information on sales, tracking popularity, user activity, and other metrics to help understand the platform's effectiveness and make data-driven decisions.
Social features. Includes features that allow users to interact with each other, and share opinions, comments, and feedback about music and NFT. This can include creating profiles, subscribing to other users, communicating in comments and chat, and sharing content through social media.
Creating Playlists. Allows users to create and save playlists of their favorite NFT music. This can include creating personalized playlists, publicly share playlists with other users, and receiving recommendations based on the playlists created.
Step 5: Develop the technical architecture of the project.
The technical architecture largely determines the flexibility, scalability, security, and reliability of the future NFT-music marketplace, as well as the speed, complexity, and cost of development. One of the most preferred options for such projects is microservice architecture. It is based on the division of functionality into small autonomous services. However, the implementation of a microservice architecture requires appropriate resources.
An example of a microservice architecture of an NFT marketplace.
Certain technologies are needed to successfully implement a microservice architecture in an NFT music marketplace. We can use the Docker service for containerization, which allows us to package each microservice into an isolated container with its dependencies and settings. For container management and deployment, orchestration is recommended, such as with the Kubernetes protocol, which provides automatic scaling and load balancing between services.
Tools such as REST and gRPC are needed to enable communication between microservices.
REST provides simplicity and versatility of interaction by allowing services to exchange data over standard HTTP. gRPC, on the other hand, provides a more efficient and compact interaction using serialization protocols such as Protocol Buffers.
The choice of technologies and development tools in each case requires detailed planning and design of the architecture, considering the specific requirements and characteristics of the future project.
Step 6: Create the UX/UI design.
A key aspect of developing the UX/UI design for the future NFT music marketplace is to create a simple and intuitive interface that allows users to easily find and purchase the NFT music tokens they are interested in. This includes developing navigation, filters, search functions, and sorting capabilities that allow users to quickly find, buy, sell, and research various music tokens.
It is also essential to pay attention to the aesthetic aspect of the design to create an engaging and emotionally connected music experience on the platform. Using appropriate color schemes, design elements, animations, and graphic components can help create a unique style and visual appeal for your NFT music marketplace.
An example of a possible Music NFT marketplace design.
Source.
Step 7: Select the technology stack for the platform.
Choosing the right technology stack for developing an NFT music marketplace is key to ensuring its efficient operation and scalability. This step requires careful consideration of various options to create a reliable and up-to-date platform.
The technology stack for developing an NFT marketplace backend:
- Programming languages: Solidity, Rust, JavaScript, Python, Go.
- Blockchain network: Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot.
- Infrastructure: IPFS, Swarm, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud.
- Protocols: 0x, Uniswap, Kyber Network, Bancor, Curve.
- Database: MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, IPFS, BigchainDB.
- Protocols: IPFS, Web3, 0x Protocol, Loopring Protocol.
- Frameworks: Truffle, Hardhat, Brownie, OpenZeppelin, Waffle.
- Cryptography: zk-SNARKs, hash functions, signatures.
Stack of technologies for NFT marketplace frontend development:
- Programming languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript.
- Design systems: Material UI, Ant Design, Bootstrap.
- Frameworks: React, Vue.js, Angular, Svelte.
- Libraries: Redux, MobX, Web3.js, Ethers.js.
- UI Components: Material-UI, Ant Design, Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS.
- Mobile application development: React Native, Flutter.
- Infrastructure: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud.
Step 8: Develop the backend and the frontend.
You can start writing the backend and frontend code at the next stage of creating the music NFT marketplace. The backend should implement the platform logic, transaction processing, NFT token management, and interaction with the blockchain platform. This requires using appropriate frameworks and programming languages, such as Node.js with Express or Nest.js. It is also important to secure and authenticate users using appropriate protocols and tools.
For the frontend, you must choose appropriate languages and frameworks, such as React, Angular, or Vue.js, and develop a user interface that allows users to view, buy, and sell music NFT tokens conveniently and efficiently. Interface performance and responsiveness optimization are essential when developing a music NFT marketplace front.
Step 9: Test the product.
Once the backend and frontend development is complete, product testing should ensure that the code is bug-free and that the product meets user requirements and expectations, provides a smooth and pleasant user experience, and is trusted by users. Testing can include functional, performance, load testing, integrity, security, and vulnerability testing.
The cost of creating a Music NFT Marketplace
As you have seen, the development of a music NFT marketplace has its own challenges, but in general, projects of this type have common features with large platforms. Below is a rough price for developing a music NFT marketplace, but it's worth noting that prices can start as low as $20,000 for a simple site with a small admin panel. More complex solutions can cost up to $80,000. Purchased projects have much more options for visitors and management in the admin panel. Therefore, the cost of such projects can reach $300,000 or more.
