wavWRLD's Weekly Wavs đđđ¶ Issue 033 | High Gas & Memecoins
Your Guide to the Best Emerging Artists & Songs in Music x New Internet
gm! Luckily things have been mostly drama-free since you last heard from us. Weâre back in our routines, Twitter seems to be holding together alright, andâwaitâwhy is gas $40 on my $10 NFT?!
Yes, itâs not a new problem but we havenât seen it in a minute: High Ethereum gas fees create significant disruptions for our market. While two weeks ago conversations centered around the decreasing price of music NFTs, weâre now questioning how to make the transaction even worth it in the first place. Itâs not a fun place to be for artists nor for collectors.
Just to make sure weâre all on the same page, Iâll take a crack at whatâs going on in laymanâs terms. Basically, gas fees are the cost of doing business on a blockchain. The more activity happening on the blockchain at any time, the higher the gas fees will be.
And whatâs been creating massive activity over the past month should be of no surprise if youâve been following the Twitter feed at all: memecoins.
Memecoins like $DOGE and now $PEPE are actually great for crypto adoption: They make headlines for doing 100x profits and have funny names that people like to buy into. That doesnât make them sound investments, but Iâm no advisor and Iâm no buzzkill!
But, there are secondary effects to the memecoin pump and one of those effects is to skyrocket gas prices to their 10-month highs.
As with many things in our space, this trend is largely out of our control. What I really want to talk about today is the implications of a spike like this on music NFT release strategy.
If you hadnât already heard the news, this spike caused us to postpone our wavWRLD wavROOM experience Season 02 launch on Glass.xyz until further notice. After polling our community, high gas prices outweighed all other factors for when to do the drop.
For releases whose plans were set in stone, it was an even tougher situation. Many collectors took to the Tweets to explain that already it was tough to mint all the artistsâ NFTs that are releasingâto add another $20-30 in gas to each purchase is making it impossible. On the other hand, artists donât see that money either. Why should the folks releasing music be punished?
And then, the third contingent of people: Polygon and Tezos maxis who have already progressed to the nirvana of gasless transactions. Credit to themâfor many, this is why they switched from Ethereum.
The crazy thing is that all arguments are valid. We want to build on ETH, but at some point most folks in this community are going to be priced out of it by folks who have the resources to manage those higher gas transactions. L2s might not feel nearly as glamorous, but having sales dry up completely is even more unappetizing.
Even as our frustrations arise here, itâs important to remember that we have choices. Where we release music now will have an effect on which platforms and even which blockchains succeed in the long run. It may not only be the web3 music space that decides this, but weâre just one of hundreds of NFT subcultures managing these fees.
I want each of us to remember our agency hereâthe NFT space is still small enough that our individual actions make an impact. It might seem weâre subject to the influence of trends and donât have any control here, but then again how many $PEPE memes have you been seeing on your timeline from your peers?
Folks are buying into memecoins, and itâs clogging up the interwebs. But, we continue to participate in the zeitgeist, which means we have the power to change it.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying into the biggest trends. In fact, itâs arguably the most fun we have in the space, when everyone is aligned and excited about one thing. But remember that AI now is what NFTs were to the general public a year and a half agoâhype and long-lasting success donât always coincide.
Which brings us to our strategic question. What does one do when releasing NFTs in the face of high gas prices? Well, here are some guiding thoughts:
I still believe there is historical value to dropping on Ethereum. With higher gas fees for both artists and collectors, it takes serious planning to price and manage ETH projects effectively.
Plus, much of the NFT space still deals in ETH, even if weâre starting to question that commitment more and more. But if youâre showing the absolute extent of your artistic potential, price that bad boy in ETH and wait for the collector that understands its value. Theyâre out there.
That being said, if youâre releasing NFTs on a semi-regular basis to give collectors an easy opportunity to support you, thereâs no reason anyone should be subject to high fees.
If a transaction would be cheap on web2 via Bandcamp or another platform, youâll likely have trouble convincing anyone to pay high gas fees, especially right now. There are so many tools to release on Polygonâthere are barriers to onboarding, sure, but thereâs also an existing collector community to tap into. Same with other gas-free platforms.
Itâs tough to finish a song and then say âah ⊠I can release this on a secondary blockchain. Itâs not as important to me.â It feels like devaluing the artistry, which we all hate doing.
Iâd argue the best way to think about it is to consider your artistic ecosystem and all the different factors that contribute to it. An L2 drop can be a promotional device that leverages your music to help generate hype for a larger, higher-priced ETH release. They give you something to talk about in between the bigger drops.
But if every drop is more important than the last, thereâs no depth to the story for collectors to buy into long-term. We need tension to build before we can releaseâotherwise, itâs memecoin behavior.
wavNEWS đ°
Five bucks says the wavLETTER has news from Sound.xyz this week ⊠ha! Of course we do!! As long as they keep shipping, we keep writing. But this time itâs big news: Sound is launching a mobile app.
With similar features to its existing platform, this app allows users to play music they have saved or collected, as well as create playlists. It will also give Sound more robust analytics on user data than they can get from their websiteâhelping them make better-informed decisions on purchasing and listening trends as well as other behaviors within the app.
Hereâs a peak into their full vision:
Step by step, onboarding gets easier.
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And then from our friends at Reveel, I love this new feature: the Address Book. Now, you can keep the waddys of your collaborators in a single Address Book interface, saving you time by making it easier to reference the correct addresses for multiple collaborations.
Now, when you create a revenue path, addresses from the Address Book drop down so you can easily select them. Managing wallet information is critical in web3âwe absolutely welcome tools that help artists stay organized.
NFT marketplace Blur launches a lending program where you can borrow against your NFTs for funds to ⊠invest in more NFTs? On the flip side, lenders can provide ETH with NFTs as collateral to then earn interest on their loans. Itâs theoretically a great way for folks with low liquidity to get into the market.
BUT! The prices of NFTs are so speculatory that itâs absurd to me that a lender would agree to take one as collateral. However, as always, higher risk = higher reward. DYOR, but I will say thisâif youâre still wrapping your head around why recent banks have been failing, please for the love of god do not take out loans with your NFTs as collateral and watch this for a laugh!
wavLIST đ¶
Fresh wavs & what weâre listening to this week from the WRLD:
Sara Phillipsâ genesis Riff x Lens song! Itâs also the first time sheâs sharing a demo of a songâShe really wanted to document and share the process from demo to completion. All collectors of this song will receive a FREE edition of the final album version when it drops on Sound! Listen & Collect on Lens here or on Beats here.
BRUXâs club remix of "Y U?" by Ella Rosa on Sound. Listen & Mint here.
The Morphotonesâa new virtual band using emerging technology to create a digitally native musical act with a rockstar team behind it: leo pastel, GRL, tony occult, Marble Garden, internetboyâand their song âfeels good!â feat Grimes AI on Sound. Listen & Collect here.
Xcelenciaâs songâI AM A LEGEND, MY BADâ on Catalog. Listen & Mint here.
wavALPHA đ
Upcoming drops & projects that you need to know about:
Demotapes is the first artist under the new Family Affair collective put together by Daniel Allan. Don't sleep on this new project.
Check out & mint flav.ioâs free snippet "Little Birdie" on Riff fka Beats x Lens. Collect the full song TODAY, exclusively on Riff.
On Thursday, May 11th at 2pm EST, Chorus of the Forest releases his Sound genesis of song âFinal Arrival,â featuring his OG web3 collaborator Jadyn Violet. The essence of their collaboration can be summarized by tying it straight to a dark, trap-like sound that is super unique. Listen & Collect here.
On Monday, May 15th at 5pm EST, billings drops his Sound genesis of song âall rightâ, which incorporates a lot of musical elements that feel authentically himâintricate guitar parts, glitchy drums, lush chords. Listen & Mint here.
Drop Party: 4:30pm EST (check his Twitter for the space link)
wavTIPs đĄ
For this wavTIP, we wanted to bring attention to a random article that we stumbled across from March. It features Chief Digital Officer of Warner Music Oana Ruxandraâs thoughts from a web3 event in Austin. Hereâs the passage that stood out most:
âA digitally augmented space that is physical as well is a key part of our future,â Ruxandra said.
Web3âs burgeoning relationship with music will continue to live on if artists and creatives in the digital space focus on relevant, future-proof and individualistic ideas, Ruxandra explained.
Easy to say as head of digital for one of the largest music companies in the world, but thatâs part of the point. Ruxandra has the exact same objectives as the rest of usâsheâs just got the budgets and pedigree to back up her strategy.
From there, she goes on to talk about how physical spaces, discord servers, and social media platforms are where she expects this to play out. That sounds great. But in actuality? Well, weâre living out the day-to-day realities of web3 musicâs growth. If it were that easy, weâd all be doing it.
So two parting thoughts for this week:
The strategy is all well and dandy, itâs the execution that matters.
Ruxandraâs pre-Warner background was in finance before she got her MBA. If that is the skillset that web2 music values, then how can you surpass that with the tools we have in web3?
Paz e amor a tudo! Falaremos na prĂłxima semana <3
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Thanks to our contributing writer Fred Riko & our curator & editor-in-chief Violetta!
Itâs all about the wavs we make with friends along the way.
-wavWRLD đđđ±
Disclosure: Writer Fred Riko & Curator/ Editor Violetta Hyland may occasionally own the NFTs of certain artists mentioned & certain platforms/ protocols highlighted. Their wallet holdings & activity can be viewed openly on the blockchain. We prioritize featuring wavWRLD members & contributors.