So, let’s start!

1.       Dapp.

The first thing that emerged during my "absence" was the dapp. Frankly, I didn't witness its inception, but as of today, it's functioning fairly well. The project's design is pleasant, with colors in harmony. There's a feed that showcases tracks from those you follow. Charts are available for weekly, monthly, and all-time standings (making it possible to earn project tokens if you make it to the weekly chart). There's a section for playlists, and the last two sections cover your library and notifications.

In your profile, you can link all your social media, messenger functionalities, set up tip acceptance, and also view your search/playback history and an interesting section on rewards. They offer you 1 token for minor actions, from app installation to sending tips, as well as for more thematic things such as playlist work, development suggestions, and quite interestingly, creating your own applications on top of Audius. We'll explore a couple of these aspects separately below.

2.       Messenger, Tips, and Infinite Uploads.

In principle, it's a standard function for applications. But with not a huge number of users and followers, the chances of "getting noticed" increase significantly. Otherwise, they're standard features.

Tips are a very useful and one of the fundamental functions. It follows Web3 principles: no intermediaries, no fees, direct transfers. No labels, no contracts, and commissions. You can send any amount of the project's tokens to any musician, thus offering invaluable support, especially for rising stars who often have to juggle their life's work with a job at a hypothetical supermarket. One of the updates added the ability to play tracks exclusively for donors. Also, you can set prices for your tracks yourself, whether it's $1 or $100, and additionally receive project tokens from each sale.

An essential point, especially when compared to streaming services and intermediaries, is that on Audius, you have an infinite number of uploads without any "buts". Additionally, you get detailed statistics for your tracks. Isn't that wonderful?

The app has also introduced an offline mode, allowing you to load favorite tracks. A single swipe, and exclusive content from your favorite artist accompanies you, even on a plane (more details on exclusives below).

3.       The project has also rolled out its SDK.

Now, you can build your project on top of Audius. One such project is youtubetoaudius.com. Also, under the hashtag #BuildOnAudius on Twitter, you can find more information and projects.

Soundstage.fm – a project acquired by Audius. It's a metaverse where artists can create avatars and interact with each other. The project integrates a web player from Audius and other functions.

During this time, AudiusCast emerged as well. It's an RSS feed loader. Created by a community member, it allows you to upload your podcasts directly to Audius. Simply paste the link to your RSS feed, and episodes will be uploaded directly to your profile and constantly updated.

The project introduced its internal "explorer". Thanks to it, you can easily track your history of operations with the native project token: from tips to purchases in your balance.

4.       Collectible Gated Tracks

Of course, I couldn't overlook this with just a passing mention. This feature allows artists to release their NFTs and publish exclusive content solely for the owners of these NFTs. Artists can release content that can be accessed by connecting their wallet containing the said NFT. The content could be unreleased tracks from popular artists, demos, concert recordings, and other exclusive content. A notable example of this is the exclusive track by Steve Aoki & Vini Vici.

5.       Audit

In late 2022, the Zellic team conducted an audit of the project on both Ethereum and Solana networks. Prior to this, the project experienced one incident. A brief summary of the events:

Incident Overview:

On July 23, 2022, a bug was discovered in the initialization code of governance, staking, and delegation contracts on the Audius platform, allowing an attacker to repeatedly call initialization functions.

The attacker managed to transfer 18 million $AUDIO tokens from the community treasury to their wallet and change the voting dynamics to illegally alter the number of frozen $AUDIO tokens in the network.

The contracts had been audited by OpenZeppelin and Kudelski, but the vulnerability wasn’t detected.

Vulnerability:

Using the same storage for the proxyAdmin address and the initializing and initialized states caused storage collision, enabling multiple calls to the initialization function.

The attacker exploited this vulnerability by calling initialization functions of contracts, including Governance, Staking & DelegateManagerV2.

Consequences:

The attacker attempted to alter the voting on the platform, mistakenly delegated a large number of $AUDIO tokens, and transferred 18,564,497.

Shortly after discovering the incident, the Audius team developed and applied a patch to regain control over the protocol.

Reaction and Problem Resolution Measures:

The Audius team quickly developed and implemented a patch, halting all recordings and token transfers on the vulnerable contracts.

Gradually, using the new contracts, the team restored the service's operations and reinitialized the contracts, preventing the reutilization of the vulnerability.

An analysis of storage changes was conducted to ensure the system's full recovery and take steps to remedy the damage.

6.       AI

Certainly, the artificial intelligence boom didn't bypass music and naturally found its place in our project. Artists can mark themselves as 'AI-friendly' in the settings, and if this feature is enabled, fans can upload and tag these artists. Audius in no way supports AI tracks created based on Audius artists' music uploaded without their permission.

7.       TikTok

Perhaps one of the most significant news for the project in the past two years. In February 2023, Audius announced its integration with TikTok. Audius users can log into the app using their TikTok profiles and use Audius tracks in their videos. Perhaps it's challenging to come up with a more interesting and practical partnership. Unfortunately, I don't have information about the direct benefits musicians obtained from this integration, but the media effect for Audius has been excellent.

8.       New Artists

Developing the marketing theme, it's worth adding names of new popular artists, whose presence drives the project: attracting listeners, new artists, increasing turnover. It's true, my taste in artists, those whose concerts I attended in other countries and whom I'd gladly add to this list, might just be "Who?" for you (a reference to Eminem – Afrojack). Nevertheless, during this period, the following names joined the project, here they are, from left to right…

WhatSoNot, Sak Noel, RL Grime, BT, Dombersky, Valentino Khan, NittiGritti, TroyBoi, DaTweekaz, Justin Caruso, Natalie Goia, RAC, Siskin, Fabian Mazur, Blondish, Dirty Audio, SouljaBoy, NTGHTMR, MALAA, Sikdope, Shipwerck, Mazare, Snavs, Eli & Fur, Leo Stannard, Trippie Red, NeroUK, ILLENIUM, Steve Aoki, Afrojack and other stars.

Labels: bitbird, Black Hole Recordings и Anjunadeep.

Additionally, artists conduct AMA sessions. One of the first ones I recall was with Cheat Codes.

9.       Lastly, I decided to check how much the plays of my previously reviewed heroes have increased. Just out of curiosity.

3LAU:

Followers – 24k (+5.2k)

Tracks – 30 (-2), maybe some were exclusive?

Plays per track – 3. There are more tracks exceeding the previous record of 11k (78.9k, 24.2k, 12.5k).

Skrillex:

Followers – 384k (+266k)

Tracks – 1 (-), unchanged.

Plays per track – 431k (+131k). Many new people joined; since the track is old, everyone has heard it, and there was no need to play it again. But of course, you can still subscribe.

Deadmau5:

Followers – 82.3k (+45.7k)

Tracks – 9 (-)

Plays per track – all 9 tracks surpassed the previous review's minimum, now ranging from 25k to 100k, instead of the previous 18.3k – 72k.

Certainly, the big names forgot about the platform, but from their numbers, we see there was no standstill and an influx of regular users. Of course, Audius cannot compete with Spotify and labels at this point, but despite the bear market and musicians' gradual acceptance of Web3 (I can draw these conclusions having participated in similar conferences in major cities with artists of various genres), Audius is moving slowly but steadily, considering the gigantic path that lies ahead.

Audius. Part 1

Audius is positioned by developers as a decentralized alternative to SoundCloud, helping artists creatively monetize their work and attract true fans. The music platform Audius aims to change the way music is monetized in the industry and make monetization accessible to multiple artists, from recognized stars to future gems. This is Audius' way of transforming the music industry. By using its own token, AUDIO, consumers can pay for consumed content, and creators and artists receive 100% of the revenue earned. It's a refreshing alternative to the traditional music scene.

As a blockchain-based streaming platform, it allows consumers to support artists directly through the AUDIO token. The protocol is governed by a community that includes developers, artists, and fans. Unlike traditional music streaming services, the number of streams doesn't determine the artist's income. Instead, the Audius platform provides artists with the flexibility to monetize their content as they see fit, including selling NFTs among other options.

According to Audius' official document, it presents the protocol as a platform that gives artists control over their content while eliminating several third parties that usually take a share of the artist's income. The concept allows content consumers to pay artists directly through the AUDIO token instead of paying their record label or any other third parties.

When the initial version was released in 2018, several issues needed to be addressed, such as piracy. Users were uploading copyrighted materials from popular artists onto the platform and earning income from them. Recently, the Audius team found a way to bypass this issue by implementing a community arbitration system for content moderation. As a result, those who upload copyrighted materials cannot earn income from them.

About the project's token

The AUDIO token is an internal asset of the Audius network and plays a key role in network security. It also ensures community governance and provides exclusive access to features. Thanks to the AUDIO token, all users can enjoy the freedom to share, listen to, and monetize audio content. Additionally, the token enables all users to earn votes in the future direction of the protocol by actively participating in network actions, such as governance and voting, among others (I'll describe all these aspects in more detail below).

The Audius platform, dubbed as an "alternative to SoundCloud," offers creative means of monetizing artists' work through increased fan engagement. The future of the streaming service, as it calls itself, allows users to shape the network as recipients of the AUDIO token.

Ownership of the AUDIO token provides holders with an identity as part of a decentralized community of artists, fans, and developers that pledge to protect the integrity of the global music catalog.

Audius. Part 2

AUDIO is the platform token for:

• Participating in protocol governance voting. It is a regular governance mechanism that only works if you have a majority of the tokens. Typically, the majority of tokens are held by the team or a few wallets that were early investors and acquired them at a low cost. The ICO price couldn't be found, but the listings were at $0.04 (usually, the price in seed/private rounds is tens of times lower than the listing price. At the time of writing, the price was $1.81 with an all-time high of almost $5). • Staking to launch discovery or content nodes, allowing users to receive a share of network fees. Staking is like depositing in a bank: you deposit your tokens under certain conditions (percentage and duration) and receive project tokens as a reward. The majority of people who believe in the project (in our case, I assume these are crypto speculators who understood the project in time and believed in it) stake their tokens for a long time (until a market downtrend or an acceptable price) and forget about them. • Staking for features such as artist tokens and badges, and receiving voting rights from fans. I didn't fully understand this point, but it seems to offer a genuinely useful function for project users, allowing direct interaction between artists and fans. An interesting point from October 27, 2020, regarding distribution: Audius distributed 50 million audio tokens (equivalent to $8 million) to its top artists and fans. This means they distributed them at a rate of $0.16 each. Binance (the second-largest exchange in the world) supports Audius and lists the AUDIO tokens on its cryptocurrency exchange platform. The music streaming platform on the blockchain, Audius, retrospectively sent 50 million (equivalent to $8 million) AUDIO tokens to its leading musicians and fans on the platform. Prominent names such as deadmau5, RAC, and Skrillex are included. Agreeably, these are top-tier names. The distribution of AUDIO tokens followed a formula. Firstly, 75% was given to creators based on the streaming content of the artist. After that, 10% of the tokens were distributed to subscriber accounts. Additionally, 5% went to playlists and favorite songs, as well as song reposts. The distribution accounts for 5% of the token's initial supply of one billion. Furthermore, 406 million (40.6%) (!!!!!!!) tokens were allocated to the Audius team and consultants. Moreover, 360 million (36%) (!!!!!) tokens are allocated for distribution among platform investors. The remaining 178 million (17.8%) tokens are allocated to a treasury managed by the community.

Audius. Part 3

Who invested in Audius

Among the investors in the platform, we see Multicoin Capital, Pantera Capital - Tier 1 funds in the crypto world. Very serious guys with very serious capital. Coinbase Ventures and Binance Labs (funds of the two top cryptocurrency exchanges, third place and below lag behind them by light years). Surely, these are the whales who will accumulate the majority of tokens and the future of the platform will depend on them. Of course, there are also well-known investors like Jason Derulo, Katy Perry, Lil Nas X, Martin Bandier, and The Chainsmokers. Some of them have even dabbled in the NFT sphere. As practice shows, money is the top priority for many. Can you name one artist who has developed their NFT projects? Who hasn't abandoned them after raising money in record time? I think that in the case of Audius, only long-term locks will keep them from flipping in the glass (usually, project tokens will not be available to everyone immediately, but in portions over time). So, you can check every "investor" from the music world regarding their inclination towards Web3, etc. Discussions in favor of "greedy Spotify and labels are evil" don't count.

Other partnerships:

There have been news about integrations with TikTok. Apparently, music from Audius can be directly loaded into TikTok. It's cool, but I haven't seen any examples yet. Let me know if there have been any. The partnership is the first of its kind for TikTok and aims to optimize the current process of uploading and selecting music for TikTok. Audius users can now simply upload tracks and share them on TikTok, which, according to the founders of Audius, takes less than a minute. Audius is the first streaming platform that allows for direct exchange with TikTok. For a music platform that recently surpassed the 5 million user mark, this is a big achievement. A representative from Audius said that Roneil Rumburg and Forrest Browning, the founders of the platform, "are close with several people at TikTok and relied on these pre-existing friendly relationships" when collaborating with the social platform.

Audius is building a radio station in the Metaverse together with DeFi Land. Of course, now everyone is building their own metaverses, but in the crypto world, despite the presence of Sandbox and Decentraland, it's all still in a very early stage. On Polkadot, this will be done by Bit.Country. Nevertheless, the project is keeping up with trends. Here's what they write: DeFi Land, whose gameplay teaches gamers about decentralized finance concepts through farming simulations, raised a financing round of $4.1 million in September under the guidance of Animoca Brands and Alameda Research. The partnership is the latest push for Audius to bring its tokenized music model into the mainstream. The service is modeled more after SoundCloud than Apple Music or Spotify, allowing users to upload their own music monetized with tokens instead of royalties.

Audius. Part 4

I decided to see how developed everything is inside. For example, I took 3LAU, who set a record for NFT in music, Deadmau5, and Skrillex. To avoid reinventing the wheel, let's compare the numbers with a direct competitor - Soundcloud:

3LAU: Audius - 18.8k followers, 32 tracks, plays per track - 1.71k - 11k Soundcloud - 441k followers, 135 tracks, plays per track - 21k - 389k

Deadmau5: Audius - 36.6k followers, 9 tracks, plays per track - 18.3k - 72k Soundcloud - 184k followers, 239 tracks, plays per track - 15k - 300k

Skrillex: Audius - 118k followers, 1(!!!) track, 300k plays Soundcloud - 6.5kk followers, 100 tracks, plays per track - 300k - 55kk

As we can see, either we are toooo early, or even the project's flagships don't really care. The numbers speak for themselves.

At the end of the month, I will go through the main points and find out if the project is developing and at what pace.

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