Bitshares Music, with the underlying cryptocurrency of ‘Notes’, can be a game changer in the crypto world, and people in this space should pay attention. The main reason is this – it’s the first time that a cryptocurrency is being used on the backend, without the user even knowing about the internal mechanics.
Yes, there will be speculators and exchanges and everything else that’s associated with a cryptocurrency. However, the main purpose of this cryptocurrency is on the backend to complete transactions. On the front end, it’s like any website where you go and listen to music, purchase music and connect with bands and artists and other music enthusiasts. They don’t know or care about what’s happening behind the scenes. From their perspective, they enter their credit card information (of PayPal or even Bitcoin) and purchase a song or make a donation. That’s it.
There are two sides to Bitshares Music – the backend that uses Bitshares code and the frontend that’s for non-crypto crowd. The frontend is going to be at PeerTracks, which currently also has an early-adopter donation (similar campaign to Angelshares but this one runs for 60 days instead).
On the backend, there are all the cool features, similar to BitsharesX. When the product is fully developed (Warning: that might take several months or even years), it would support speculation in an artist, a particular song, etc. and let the artist sell ‘equity’ in her songs, with the risk being taken up by speculators who bet that the song will gain in popularity. This is a pretty neat idea overall. In addition, Bitshares Music captures a segment of the market that isn’t always on the forefront of technology – the music industry. It would also bring the power of the blockchain to an audience that probably doesn’t know much about it, or even cares much.
This is the ultimate goal of most cryptocurrencies. For instance, when one pitches Bitcoin as a remittance service, the holy-grail is to do the conversion between fiat and Bitcoin behind the scenes. From a user perspective, all he cares about is he’s sending x USD and his family in Mexico receives y Peso, at an exchange rate that’s better than the current system. Bitshares Music is trying to do something exactly like this, with the user not caring what’s going on behind the scenes, but the traders, speculators and arbitrageurs are still working on the backend for their share of profit, which keeps the system stable.
Lots of interesting things to follow in this project, not just from a technical perspective, but from a social one as well.
Photo Credit: Flickr