The year 2021 is called the year of the “metaverse”, a concept launched by American sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash”. Due to the unsuitable technical conditions at the time, the metaverse remained an unfeasible dream that was only occasionally mentioned in science fiction movies. However nowadays, with the explosion of the crypto industry, the rise of NFTs and the involvement of various capital investors and other companies, the metaverse may become a reality. Moreover, it has already garnered substantial support from the general public. The attractiveness of this futuresque technology has triggered people’s infinite imaginations and has already been proclaimed as the ultimate manifestation of the Internet.
The relationship between NFT and metaverse
If you want to understand what a metaverse is, then you must first understand what NFT is. NFT stands for “Non-Fungible Token”, a unique data representation recorded in the blockchain that cannot be copied, replaced or sliced. It can function as a guarantee of the authenticity or rights to any digital asset. Simply put, NFTs are indispensable elements in the realization of the metaverse.
Why is this so? Well in the metaverse, people will want to conduct all social and trading activities that take place in regular society. Of course to be able to trade, there needs to be an object to trade with. NFTs can fulfill this role of medium of exchange in the metaverse, due to the high scarcity, indivisibility, irreplaceability and uniqueness of every minted NFT. These properties act as a guarantee for the value and ownership of any item in the virtual world and therefore allow the generation, identification, pricing, circulation and traceability of digital assets.
Currently in the NFT sector, investors still favor the collection-type NFTs as represented by the in-game NFT assets of GameFi. Sadly, the market is not yet enthusiastic about practical or commercial NFTs such as music NFTs. However, we are confident that these types will become the most popular and valuable kinds of NFT in the near future. What has been lacking, is the appearance of a flagship project in the music sector of the crypto market. We know that this is what every investor is watching out for: the next darkhorse of the industry. Therefore we would like to turn your attention to Melos, a music metaverse platform built with web 3.0 technology, and the utopian vision behind it.
What is Melos?
Melos is a music NFT creation and social networking platform., which was founded and developed by a group of pioneering music artists. It not only allows all music lovers to give full play to their inspiration and build social networks, which embodies and circulates music inspiration in the Web 3.0 world, but also brings benefits to all music creators, thanks to the DNA information in the smart contract and the decentralized blockchain technology.
Melos’ Utopian Vision
Melos wants to build a blockchain ecosystem where all types of music lovers can participate in the creation of music and get paid accordingly. From casual music lovers to seasoned musicians/producers, the Melos platform incorporates new and diverse features so that all can better find what they are looking for in music and NFTs.
With this vision in mind, Melos offers many advantages that other music NFT projects do not such as a digital identity, community features, music creation categories, DNA Tree, Lazy Mint tool, Music SocialFi, Battle (GameFi) and much more. These innovations in combination with Melos’ vision make it possible for users, fans and musicians all over the world to interact and cooperate within the same space.
MusicBlock & DNA Tree make Melos the Github of the music industry
Now that we understand Melos’s core vision to create a music metaverse platform, we can make a useful analogy to showcase the role that Melos can play for the wider music industry. For people familiar with Github, they know this application as the platform where anyone can download the source codes of an existing project for secondary editing to create a new project. Melos can serve a similar function through its DNA Tree, which will turn it into the Github of the music industry.
Through the Melos platform, anyone can mint new NFTs, called MusicBlock NFTs. The information of each newly minted NFT will be written into a block and kept in the DNA Tree application. Afterwards, each transaction concerning these NFT can refer to the information in the DNA Tree so as to allocate a corresponding profit to each contributor.
DNA Tree connects and records all alterations that MusicBlock NFTs underwent through secondary editing by writing it on the chain. For example, suppose A publishes a guitar solo through Melos and uploads it to the platform as a ‘G0 NFT’ (guitar). B then buys the NFT through the platform and adds a piano piece through a second edit to form a ‘G1 NFT’ (guitar + piano) and uploads it again to the platform. Later, C buys this G1 NFT and continues to edit it once more to add a trumpet to form ‘G2 NFT’ (guitar+piano+trumpet). Theoretically each NFT can be reworked an unlimited number of times, and each new contribution can lead to profits. It is worth noting that this profit is not a one-time deal. As long as the NFT gets consumed or circulated, all NFT contributors will get a share of each transaction’s profits. In addition to these dividends, we think the biggest benefit for musicians and producers is the access to a large number of musical elements. This exposure may bring about creative inspiration and ensuing musical success. Such success will attract a constant stream of creators to Melos which will solve the problem of introducing traffic to the platform.
Melos enables SocialFi
Melos’ MusicBlock constitutes a new form of relationship between fans, musicians and producers, a new form that corresponds to SocialFi.
SocialFi is defined as Socialized Finance, and as the name implies, SocialFi combines social relations with finance.
SocialFi DeFi-izes the social economy, where issuers directly connect with participants through social tokens and benefit from them. And we, the general public, can get access to benefits through the financialization and tokenization of our own social influence or social media traffic.
Melos, as a music NFT promotion platform, will attract influential musicians and producers from all over the world to join them. Fans, musicians and producers will be connected through Melos’ token to enable music without borders. Unique circles based on a certain interest or a certain KOL may be formed, which can later on further attract fans and expand their influence. The establishment of these continually expanding groups will help Melos to create a living and breathing musical utopia.
Metis Creative Tools & Lazy Mint help users to realize their musical dreams
Music never belongs to one person, it belongs to the whole world. Melos is not only an excellent but also professional NFT production platform. Melos provides a professional music creation tool called ‘Metis’. Metis helps those who are interested in music but lack professional music knowledge to create their own music and unique MusicBlock NFTs. The use of an IPFS system to store them, ensures that data losses or errors due to the platform are minimal so as to guarantee the timeliness of the DNA Tree during use.
In addition to Metis and IPFS technology, Melos is also the first music platform to use ‘Lazy Mint’. This tool allows users to save a lot of GAS fees, the cost of writing data into a block, which has been a burden for many starting creators. As there is no way to predict whether a produced NFT will be recognized and purchased by others, it becomes risky to invest a lot of money into a block before it has proved to be profitable. Lazy Mint was developed to overcome this deterrent so that creators can carelessly start their musical process.
Conclusion and Outlook
Melos has a strong technical foundation due to the team’s solid music expertise and the allocation of strategic financing from Binance, NGC and other head institutions also gives the project a strong financial foundation. On the technological and finance level, everything is in order. All that is left is a sweeping wind that will push the market into a SocialFi direction and Melos will be there waiting to represent the music NFT sector to the world. Step by step we are working towards the realization of our music utopia. We are confident that Melos will take its leading position as the metaverse’s music platform.
