The world of dApps continues to change the face of the internet, bringing with it new opportunities. There are endless dApp projects catering to gaming, gambling, and DeFi. However, a few projects are working on other interesting use cases for dApps, and Audius is one of the most interesting.
Audius labels itself as ‘the world’s first decentralized music streaming platform.’ It promises creators and musicians increased control, freedom, and flexibility in their creative musical process and fan communities.
The mainnet and the platform AUDIO token launched together in October 2020. AUDIO tokens allow creators and musicians to monetize their work using conventional and unconventional methods.
AUDIO token holders also contribute to the Audius ecosystem, providing security for the blockchain while receiving AUDIO tokens as a reward. Token holders also receive exclusive features in the future and participate in Audius platform governance processes.
The platform is free to join, with an easy setup process. Creators upload to the platform, and fans can listen to their work, like it, and share it with their social community. Audius is available via browser, mobile device, or PC app.
Since its release in September 2019, Audius has gained over 500,000 monthly active users. By the time it launched the mainnet, the platform was already receiving one million monthly streams.
So, is AUDIO worth adding to your portfolio? Let’s unpack the details of this unique project.
Where to Buy Audius Token (AUDIO)
This section is our top picks of where and how to buy the Audius token. We chose these based on our experience of using them and considered fees, security, payment options and reputation.
- Uphold: Great Exchange for Newbies & Advanced Users
- Binance: Largest Crypto Exchange with Low Fees
- Kucoin:Beginner Friendly & Lots of Choice
- Kraken: Highly Regarded and Easy to Use for Beginners
Visit The Top Pick
Uphold: Great For Buying & Selling Multiple Cryptos
Uphold is a comprehensive digital financial services platform catering to a worldwide audience, operating in over 184 countries and supporting over 200 traditional and cryptocurrency assets as well as commodities. Through seamless foreign exchange and cross-border remittance solutions, Uphold has facilitated over US$4 billion in transactions since its inception in 2015.
As a multi-asset platform, Uphold offers a distinct "Anything-to-Anything" trading experience, allowing users to effortlessly exchange between various asset classes. With integrated payment solutions, Uphold paves the way for universal access to financial services.
Founded on a robust framework of proprietary technologies and e-money applications, Uphold is dedicated to promoting a future where individuals and businesses globally can benefit from secure, transparent, equitable, and cost-effective financial services.
Pros
- 50+ Cryptocurrencies
- Easy to Use - Single Click Trading
- iOS & Android App
- Transparent Fees
- Well Regulated
Cons
- No Volume Discounts
Binance: Largest Crypto Exchange
Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trade volumes. Cryptocurrency investors can enjoy full access to trade over 600 crypto assets, including big movers like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most of the top cryptos. With a minimum deposit of $10, investors can instantly start investing their crypto of choice.
Besides its large inventory of crypto assets, Binance also offers the lowest trade fees in the market. Binance charges 0.1% on all trades, and there’s an option for this figure to be further discounted by 25% for investors who hold Binance Coin – the exchange’s native token.
Funding your Binance account is seamless and straightforward. The exchange supports several deposit channels, including bank wire transfers, peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, credit/debit cards, and payment processors.
However, unlike eToro – deposits are not always free. For instance, Binance charges customers a standard fee of up to 4.50% on all crypto purchases made with debit/credit cards. Crypto deposits, on the other hand, are free.
This popular crypto exchange features a detailed learning curve and advanced trading tools, making it more suited for well-experienced traders and not beginners.
In terms of security, Binance offers the best security integrations. This broker features two-factor authentication (2FA), whitelisting, and advanced data encryption to protect customer funds and data. Also, Binance utilizes cold storage to store a vast majority of its funds, and the exchange also operates an insurance fund that protects customers in the event of an attack.
Pros
- Lowest trading fees in the market
- High liquidity on most cryptos
- Advanced trading tools
- Large crypto inventory
- Wide range of deposit channels
Cons
- Not beginner-friendly
KuCoin: Beginner Friendly & Lots of Choice
This exchange, one of the oldest and most popular brokers globally, is especially suited for derivatives traders and sophisticated investors. However, everyday investors looking to get into the market can make use of the broker as well.
Based in Seychelles, KuCoin isn’t licensed to operate in the United States. However, investors in other countries can easily access the broker and buy coins. The exchange currently supports over 200 cryptocurrencies and 400 trading pairs, and it has a full suite of features that encompasses savings, staking, and even Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) participation.
This broker works for advanced traders or beginners, the interface takes a little time to get used to but it's fairly intuitive and there are tutorials on the site.
Currently, KuCoin doesn’t accept bank deposits. Instead, the broker allows investors to deposit using cards, swift peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, and direct crypto transfers. Users can only deposit fiat or crypto, and KuCoin requires a $5 minimum deposit.
Trading fees on KuCoin stand at a flat rate of 0.1%. However, these fees could reduce based on users’ 30-day trading volumes and their ownership of KuCoin’s KCS token.
The broker also takes security very seriously, with bank-level encryption and security infrastructures to keep users’ funds and data safe.
Pros
- Bank-level security infrastructure
- Access to IEOs
- Quick P2P trading system
Cons
- No bank deposit option
Kraken: A Leading & Well Regarded Exchange
Kraken is one of the longest established exchanges with an excellent reputation for security and integrity.
Started back in 2011 they have built a great reputation among traders and beginners alike and offer high liquidity and lots of different cryptocurrency listings.
Kraken is trusted by some of the largest institutions and traders around the world and can handle high volume trading with ease.
They have lots of coin pairs to trade and also offer withdrawals back to fiat in your currency of choice.
We have no hesitation in recommending Kraken for your trading needs.
Pros
- High Liquidity
- Great Reputation
- Well Established
- Easy to Use
- Fiat Options
Cons
- The KYC process can take a little while
Audius Explained
The Audius dev team has the mission of providing a free platform for music creators and fans. Users can stream, distribute, and monetize their content. Audius fans and musicians collaborate with node operators to operate and secure the network.
Audius works on an incentive-based system allowing users to provide high-quality audio streaming experiences guided by the goals of Audius management. Audius aims to compensate users in proportion to the value they create for the network and the user experience.
Artists can directly engage with their fans on the Audius platform, with governance earned through creating value in the Audius platform, shared between users contributing to its protocol. Audius aims to keep pricing and earnings consistent, transparent, and predictable for users.
Audius provides democratized access, allowing anyone to contribute to the platform’s development. The dev team wants to keep intermediaries away from the platform, instead relying on transparent, algorithmic, and verifiable intermediaries.
Audius Tech – AudSP
AUDIO Token, Artist Tokens, and Stablecoins
The AUDIO token is the utility token used to power the Audius ecosystem. It provides an incentive for users to align their activities with other participants in the Audius ecosystem, providing network governance, access, and security.
Content Ledger
This ledger offers a single truth source for all data stored and accessed on the Audius platform. Its primary role in the ecosystem is to anchor references to content hosted on the content nodes.
Discovery Node
This user-operated node network indexes the Audius content ledger, providing an interface to query the ecosystem when retrieving metadata.
The Audius governance mechanism provides a way to modify the Audius platform, allowing devs to improve the ecosystem. Holders of AUDIO tokens have voting rights on all governance decisions. This structure leaves the governance of the platform in the hands of its users, not the dev team.
Content Node
Content nodes maintain the metadata and content access on the Audius platform. They utilize the AudSP native extension to access the interplanetary file system (IPFS). Staking operators run these nodes, incentivizing them a portion of the network fees.
Alternatively, artists can run nodes themselves to host and deliver their content. Self-hosted nodes give artists more control of their content and how users access it. The artist has full control over the distribution and delivery of their content on Audius.
Audius allows artists to control their content encryption keys while allowing for custom permission extensions that are not native to the Audius protocol.
Decentralized Storage Protocol
All files stored and distributed on Audius must be available at all times, decentralized, and verified independently. These three core principles of the Audius protocol ensure democratic participation of the platform for users.
This structure includes node operators, fans listening to content, and artists sharing their metadata and audio. All three user types on the platform share information, and the content ledger retains data references. The Audius storage protocol delivers an equivalent user experience to existing centralized solutions, such as SoundCloud, while scaling with network demand as it increases.
The Audius platform makes use of IPFS to ensure delivery, enabling global distribution functionality, modular encryption of data at the object level and enhanced security for content addressing.
To ensure the high availability of stored files on the Audius platform, the AudSP offers staking for users hosting content on the network. The content ledger contains the IPLD links to files and associated metadata.
As decentralized storage systems and protocols mature, the Audius team may extend the protocol to include storage solutions like Sia, FileCoin, Swarm, or other similar projects.
The Audius Content Ledger
The Audius content ledger features smart contracts hosted on the Ethereum network. It also includes content hosted on the POA network and L1 and L2 blockchain networks suitable for hosting the Audius content library.
Different components of Audius run on various blockchain platforms. Or, they might use off-chain scaling solutions where scalability tradeoffs are made on a subprotocol-specific and modular basis.
Audius Content Sharing
The Audius content ledger hosts all the data relating to content stored on the platform. The Audius content ledge includes consistent audio content and metadata format specifications ensuring optimal user accessibility.
This decentralized process allows artists to control their track content, ownership structure, and revenue splits. There’s also a registry of all nodes accessible in Audius and a social chart of all users interacting with the platform.
The artist can upload their content to the Audius platform using a new transaction after generating upload artifacts from content nodes. The artist then modifies the track content and metadata by sharing this modified content to the AudSP, updating the content ledger with the metadata IPLD link.
After listing it in the content ledger, the platform indexes it using the discovery nodes to make it visible and accessible for users.
Discovery Nodes
The discovery nodes provide the mechanism the Audius platform needs to index content and metadata, making it searchable by users. The discovery node must be decentralized and efficient, providing a high-quality user experience on the platform.
The discovery node must be transparent and provably correct, and it eliminates a profit incentive to remove the chance of manipulating search query results. The node must be extendable, allowing the Audius community to explore search and ranking methodologies.
Discovery node operators earn revenue through registering discovery nodes with a network stake. This structure allows them to make a percentage of the AUDIO tokens issued and fees generated through the network.
Governance
To create a community-owned and operated network, consumers, creators, and token holders have the role of modifying and improving the Audius protocol through instituting changes to the parameters shaping the Audius protocol.
These changes include feature integrations, token distribution, royalty, staking rewards, and fee pool allocation. Each feature and parameter of the Audius platform is subject to governance, with each AUDIO token providing the holder with one voting right.
All participants at the governance level must share the same ideology of growth of the protocol, despite how they use the platform or the duties carried out on Audius. In terms of node operators, the governance system on Audius acts to empower decentralized content storage.
It provides participants with direct incentives to earn rewards while amended in line with expenses, value, and the consensus of all providers on the Audius network. Governance includes short-circuiting processes allowing for the passing of proposals during urgent governance meetings.
AUDIO Tokenomics
The Audius platform relies on the AUDIO token in aligning governance procedures with financial incentives on the platform. This ideology hopes to consistently increase the use of Audius while creating long-term value in the Audius protocol.
The AUDIO token has three functions, with staking unlocking all three aspects. The three functions of the AUDIO token include feature access, governance, and security. Users can stake their AUDIO tokens, creating collateral for all value-added network services.
In exchange for staking AUDIO, users receive benefits, including access to governance rights, exclusive features, and a percentage of AUDIO token issuance.
Node operators stake their AUDIO tokens to assist with operating and securing the Audius protocol. Creators and artists can also stake their AUDIO tokens, unlocking exclusive services and features on the Audius platform.
Every AUDIO token staked in the Audius protocol receives governance weight allocated to the size of their AUDIO holding. So, the more AUDIO tokens the user holds, the more influential their vote in governance issues on the platform.
The governance shapes the future of Audius, and it’s a critical component of the platform’s operations. The dev team plans to issue AUDIO tokens for collateral for artist-focused tools on the network. Some examples are badges, tokens, and earnings multipliers.
In future iterations, fans and users can delegate tokens to artists and creators, allowing the shared growth of the platform and future token issuance.
Stablecoin Payment Options
The future governance decisions on Audius may include the option of allowing users and artists to transact on the platform using stablecoins, like USDC or Tether, to access features and paid content. This mechanism will enable creators and artists to set independent rates for their work.
It can also allow fans to make fractional payments on the platform without creating friction in the ecosystem. If this model comes to fruition, the management team will likely introduce a protocol fee for capturing a percentage of transactions using stablecoins. The protocol then distributes these earnings to the payment pool for node operators.
Artist Tokens
Governance can assist with allowing artists to create and distribute unique tokens through the Audius platform. These tokens will give fans the chance to unlock exclusive artist content. The artists will need to stake AUDIO to create artist tokens.
Artists can reach out to representatives on ideas for best practices in creating and using custom tokens in the Audius ecosystem and Ethereum network.
Audius plays the role of aggregator of the artist tokens across its issuance platforms like Zora, Roll, and Rally. The native protocol distribution mechanism can allocate any interoperable tokens.
The Audius Team
The Audius team comprises audiophiles, entrepreneurs, blockchain experts, and engineers. The project’s mission is to empower the next generation of artists using a decentralized platform that anyone can access. Forrest Browning and Roneil Rumburg are the co-founders of the Audius project, playing the roles of CEO and COO.
Roneil Rumburg acts as co-founder and CEO of Audius. Roneil recently co-founded the Kleiner Perkins early-stage seed fund. During his tenure at KP, Roneil was responsible for making seed investments into AI-based and blockchain companies. He attended Stanford University and is the co-founder of the Bitcoin peer-to-peer payment company ‘Backslash.’
Forrest Browning is co-founder and chief operating officer at Audius. Forrest is a recipient of the Forbes 30-Under-30 award and a co-founder of the enterprise data center management platform ‘StacksWare,’ which he started as a research project while attending Stanford University.
The company provides scale analytics for Fortune 500 companies. StacksWare was acquired in 2017 by Apollo Global Management for $5.1 Billion.
How to Buy Audius on Uphold
Looking to buy Audius? Get started on Uphold within minutes:
Step 1: Sign Up to Uphold
Visit Uphold and hit the "Signup" button at the top right of the website.
Once the account is created, Uphold requires that users enter their personal information, including legal name and date of birth, as shown on their government documents. They’ll also need to enter their home address information and verify their phone number to finalize the process. This is a basic verification process
Step 2: Fund Your Account
Uphold offers fee-free deposits to its customers. They can deposit funds into their Uphold wallet using cryptocurrencies, debit cards, bank wire transfers, and crypto deposits. New users need additional verification to use the debit card or wire transfer options.
In the sidebar, click the "Linked Accounts" link and choose to add a card or a bank.
Enter your card or bank details.
Step 3: Buy Your Chosen Crypto
Now search for your chosen crypto to purchase, you can choose a currency to pay with, the amount and the crypto you wish to purchase.
After selecting the trading pair, click on the “preview trade” option and it will show you the trade and fees, finally click "confirm trade" to make the purchase.
In Closing
Audius is changing the way people access music online. This project might not be the most advanced dApp, but it solves many problems creators and artists deal with on centralized music platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud.
The dApps growth in such a short period is an encouraging sign that this project adds value to the music community, bringing users a new way to experience their favorite genres and artists. Audius could end up being the SoundCloud killer we’ve been waiting for, but it’s a little early to start speculating on its success.
The mission of Audius is to eventually overtake centralized streaming services, which exist to serve ads to users rather than further the enjoyment of music on the platform. Time will tell if Audius brings enough utility to the market to entice mass adoption.
