In my book I suggest a cryptocurrency attached to trees in plantations – basically a stable coin that grows and grows in value. You buy a “tree” but that is an average tree across all the plantations. It is stable, and real, and encourages long-term holdings.
Today I tried to think of similar examples. I considered shipping containers and pallets, but they deteriorate with time. And then I thought about slavery and quickly shifted to this:
Artists can grow with time, in terms of output and income. Not all will, of course.
Digital is the thing now, and NFTs are going off. Owning a digital exclusivity/patronage of art is now a thing.
The concept is a digital-only artist management company, at scale.
Scale means negotiating for streaming revenue. Scale means the ability to create a big enough marketplace that unrepresented artists will use it too.
Artist_coin sells crypto coins that are backed up by 10-year management contracts with artists. They can be music, acting, movies, art, video game skins, whatever.
Like traditional management, we get a percent of revenue or profits. Because it is digital only, revenue and profits are almost the same.
Example. Bansky carries on making art like always. And in the physical world still has the same income/ownership/control. For digital, we control the digital sales of his art (there are ways of making it not copiable), licensing and NFTs (people can buy the art, but you are one of, or the owner, of the digital original – the ultimate fan/supporter).
At a lower level, NFTs become a badge of pride, that you support the artist’s continuance. You could literally get a digital badge affirming that. Reverse crowdfunding.
One coin = 1 artist. But not a specific artist, an average of all artists. Most artists will never be a success, so the value of a coin will be quite low compared to the famous examples on the roster. So maybe $5K but you get to imagine you own a K-pop band.
Of course you can buy a fraction of an artist.
The income from selling coins is used to give advances to artists with potential. Most won’t reach that potential, but that those that do could be huge. The business model could see a huge number of new artists teaming up with artist_coin.
The advance, for artists with potential, could be as low as $5K, against 50% of all future digital sales.
Using the coin
Every crypto coin wants a use, to become a general currency.
If artist_coin run a digital marketplace, where you can stream, buy copies or buy NFTs, and it has enough content, the currency can take off.
Owners of artist_coin get a discount at the marketplace.
- the coin has a real-world tangible value
- if management does well, the value will grow
- coin owners benefit through purchase discounts
The only problems are finding managers able to choose good potential artists (while casting a wide net), capable of promoting them, and having enough rep to kick this thing off.
Get that right and we can make a crypto that ticks every box, and make being an artist much more profitable. A force for good!
Coin value
If the business is profitable, that means artists can be paid more in advances, and therefore a coin will be sold for more. That will mean the existing coins will rise in value. There could be an annual day where the profits are announced, and a new value decided. Everything would need to be transparent. Meanwhile, any major success of roster artists could cause speculative increases on the open market.
It could take a few years before it is profitable, as overnight successes are rare.