Among these changes was the addition of staking.

Staking NOTES is a new way to bet on channels and earn upside in the growth and curation happening within each one.

Staked NOTES are one of four factors that affect channel rankings, the others being number of curators, songs casted, and channel balance.

Today, there are over 33,617,577 NOTES staked.

Using the Sonata API - you can see staking numbers in realtime.

Click here to check it out!

Staking allows you to bet on the future of a channel by locking NOTES in a specific channel in order to earn rewards.

In its current form, staking is instant. Stake NOTES to start earning when distributions are sent, and unstake at any time with no waiting period.

Your potential returns are based on two factors:

• Number of NOTES tipped in the channel

• The percentage your stake is worth in the total pool

Maximizing rewards will require close observation of channel metrics to ensure you are getting the most value per token staked.

Today, staking is available to every user by on each channel's page.

By staking your NOTES - you will be eligible to earn a pro-rata allocation of 50% of NOTES driven each time a distribution is made.

This distribution will also include 11,111 NOTES that we send equally to the top 10 Sonata supported channels. These distributions will happen at 12 UTC every Friday - giving stakers a clear way to earn.

Stakers do not need to claim or unstake their NOTES - these tokens will be sent directly to your address based on what percent of the total pool your stake represents, at the moment of distribution.

The more NOTES staked to your favorite channel, the more NOTES it earns each week.

Visit sonata.tips to start staking today!

*These numbers are subject to change in the future based on feedback and recommendation from the Sonata Council - a board made up of channel moderators of all sizes.

We believe in an open future for music where curation is driven from the bottom up.

An open future in which communities around the world can create their cozy corners on the Internet and have the means to make them grow. 

On which music platforms are built for composability, collaboration and community ownership, incentivizing the growth of a net new economy for the music industry. 

A music platform that has similar characteristics to mycelium: a shared structure that allows other ecosystems to grow and thrive. 

One which doesn’t impose taste, trends, or favors certain music or artists over others. 

A place where music lovers from around the world can find a home to share their passion and discover music from every style, decade, country, and genre.

Learnings from Existing Music Platforms

Napster and The Pirate Bay were the last grassroots revolution in the music industry, empowering everyone to share and listen to music.

An initial wave of platforms emerged, most of which were shut down shortly after.

Only open P2P networks have persisted, remaining operational despite facing years of challenges.

Eventually, entrepreneurs decided to partner with the traditional music industry incumbents - giving birth to the current era of music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and Tidal. 

There are two models that have been successful in the post Napster era:

Royalty Based Streaming Platforms

Companies like Spotify, Tidal, or Apple Music, which work closely with labels. 

User Generated Streaming Platforms

Music platforms like SoundCloud, Bandcamp, or Audiomack were home to a new wave of original music and newborn artists and music communities. 

SoundCloud and Audiomack eventually ended up partnering with big labels, and Bandcamp was acquired, showing once more how difficult it is to build a new kind of music platform that goes against their interests. 

Both categories often rely on editorial playlists, AI, and user behavior algorithms for music curation, creating a reinforcing loop where most music gets buried beneath the algo.

This also negatively impacts artists worldwide, leading to decreased earnings and limited distribution opportunities.

A third model which never fully scaled is:

Music Curation Platforms

Websites like Hype Machine, ThisSongIsSick, and Indie Shuffle thrived during the blog era but eventually lost most of their activity. 

They focused on curation and fostering music communities, streaming music via embedded players and music streaming platform APIs.

However, they didn’t have a platform model, and didn’t have the means to capture the value and sharing the value they were creating with their curators.

We will change how music discovery and curation work.

Sonata exists to create a shared economy around music curation and discovery. 

Previous attempts failed because they didn’t adopt a platform approach, preventing those websites and curators from benefiting from the platform’s success and forcing them to rely on ads. 

Crypto changes this. 

By leveraging crypto we can build Sonata to be a new kind of music curation platform.

One that favors human curation and a diversity of styles, moving away from editorialism and sharing ownership with the Sonata community. 

Season two is all about music channels and their communities. 

Today we started quietly launching new features to make Sonata a place where everyone can share ownership in the economy we are creating through NOTES.

We want everyone to be able to use the NOTES they earn on Sonata as they will become increasingly more prevalent in the coming months... 

Music Channels 

Every music channel on Sonata now has their own address thanks to Privy.

Although initially controlled by Sonata, channel addresses will be eventually transferred to channel moderators to manage them as they please.

We’re starting by routing 10% of any tips distributed within a channel back to the channel address. This is complimented by a weekly distribution of NOTES to the top channels - expected to go live before the end of the week. 

Eventually, channels will be able to reward their communities by using their treasuries to incentivize curation that aligns with their taste and ethos.

We have also rolled out a new UI for channels, featuring moderators, NOTES balance, top songs, and more.

Channel moderators will also receive a badge indicating the channel they are running.

Sonata Council

We've been reaching out to music channel moderators with the goal of creating a council to help us run Sonata.

We believe the only way for Sonata to thrive and become a global music curation platform is by building it together and sharing ownership with our community.

The Council will initially have two main functions:

1. Share feedback on the present and future of Sonata.

2. Help decide on the new music channels to be added.

All Council members will be rewarded with NOTES for their participation.

We are thrilled about the potential a lean, small, and fast Council can bring to Sonata.

If we haven’t reached out and you’re interested, please DM me here.

Collect Songs

Today, all Sound and Zora songs shared on Sonata feature a collect button that redirects you to the platform where you can collect the song.

Stake to Earn

We enabled the option to stake your NOTES on channels to get rewards for supporting the music and communities that you love.

In today’s version of Sonata - the main function of NOTES is for tipping. We’ve had nearly 1500 users earn NOTES for sharing music.

With channel staking - you can take those NOTES and stake them on the channels you are most passionate about. As those channels earn NOTES through 10% of tips and weekly distributions - stakers may be eligible for NOTES rewards based on how moderators decide to distribute them back to their community.

We will share more on "Staking" dynamics soon.

NOTES Back

We want to incentivize curators to distribute their full daily allowance. We will shortly roll out a NOTESback system, in which users are incentivized to distribute their NOTES and get 5% of their tips back to their account. 

Sonata Pro 

Sonata Pro is the premium subscription of Sonata built in partnership with Hypersub.

By purchasing Sonata Pro - you’ll unlock a custom badge next to your name and a boost on your daily allowance. The longer your subscribe - the more your daily allowance increases.

With Season Two - we’ll allow users to redeem their NOTES for a Sonata Pro subscription.

We are building Sonata to become one of the leading open music platforms of the future.

We believe that shared ownership, composability, and openness are key drivers in creating a new music economy powered by crypto rails.

We don’t see anyone as a competitor. Even if you’re competing with Sonata, we will find ways to collaborate, with the ultimate goal of creating vibrant new markets.

Sonata Season Two marks just the beginning of what we can achieve by fostering a new economy where every music lover, and eventually every artist, can benefit.

We invite music lovers from all over the world to come together to create a new way of discovering and sharing music.

Music is THE BEST.

The home for music on Farcaster.

It’s powered by NOTES - our onchain points earned by sharing music and tipped by listeners.

Sonata aggregates music shared on Farcaster - layered with a new economics through tipping.

If you’ve ever shared a song from Spotify, Soundcloud or Sound on Farcaster - you likely have a NOTES allocation to claim at sonata.tips.

Note: These allocations live on L3 and are not redeemable until the end of Season 1. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Sonata is a client to share and upvote music on Farcaster.

Anyone can easily submit a link to a song on supported platforms.

The platform also automatically pulls any music that has been submitted across other Farcaster clients. Users earn a daily allowance which can be used to tip different songs they like - similar to DEGEN.

Under the hood - every upvote on Sonata is a like on Farcaster and vice versa.

This means if you like a song on Warpcast, Supercast, Nook or any client - it will register as an upvote on Sonata. And if you upvote a song on Sonata it will register as a like on those same clients. This same principle also applies to tipping - if you tip someone DEGEN on Sonata, it will leave a reply to that cast on Warpcast.

Sonata aggregates songs and puts them in a global Trending feed to give people a clear place to see what everyone is listening to.

NOTES are onchain points of Sonata launched as a Base L3 using Stack.

They are transferable but can not be redeemed outside of Sonata during Season 1.

At inception 150M NOTES are claimable by anyone who has shared a song across any Farcaster client from the following platforms:

• Soundcloud

• Sound

We’ve included an allocation to the Invest in Music community - including podcast collectors and grant recipients.

There are a total of 150M NOTES distributed to accounts who qualified - claimable on sonata.tips.

The initial airdrop was calculated as a combination of the songs shared and likes generated by those songs.

The Genesis Airdrop will be available to claim for 90 days, after which the claim window will close and the points will be reissued at Sonata’s discretion.

Claim your NOTES by signing into Sonata and connecting to your Farcaster account.

Look for the “claim” button. NOTES will be assigned to the Verified Address associated with your Farcaster account. No gas or signature required.

Every like on Farcaster acts as an upvote. The more upvotes a song has, the higher it ranks in the feed.

Every upvote on Sonata counts as 10 NOTES. This comes in addition to a tipping model which allows users to tip in either NOTES or DEGEN.

The amount of likes + tips a song receives will play into the curator’s daily allowance.

These upvotes will power a Trending chart - where NOTES will be allocated on a recurring basis to songs which receive the most likes + tips each day.

Daily Allowance

Every curator on Sonata will receive a daily allowance of NOTES for sharing music on Farcaster.

This allowance will be registered in real-time - resetting every day at 10AM PST.

When a user tips NOTES - tokens are transferred from their account to the curator in real time, thanks to it being on an L3.

Unused NOTES do not roll over, and reset daily.

The daily allowance was modeled after DEGEN - and calculated based on the number of posts made, how early you posted a song and your average interactions.

We will constantly monitor the daily allowance to find the optimal system for our curators and users.

Earn NOTES

The best way to increase your daily allowance is to share music on Farcaster.

Users can also tip the Sonata account with DEGEN - and automatically have their account credited with NOTES. (shoutout Perl for inspiring this idea!)

The total supply of NOTES will be 1B tokens.

150M NOTES (or 15% of the total supply) are being retroactively allocated to all accounts who have submitted music on Farcaster or been a part of the Invest in Music community.

100M NOTES will be allocated in Season 1 which will run for 30 days as follows:

• 75M NOTES to daily allowances

• 25M NOTES to trending tracks

We expect to tweak and adjust the distribution of NOTES over the course of the first month - gearing towards an optimal model for Season 2.

In Season 2 - we hope to enable redemptions on Base, giving users the ability to freely trade their tokens.

We encourage users to share feedback on NOTES and help us inform the way they evolve in the coming months.

Tipping good music is the core focus of Sonata.

We are heavily inspired by the social graph DEGEN has built on Farcaster and want to further push the envelope on real-time tipping and earning on Sonata.

We plan to support as many music platforms as possible - and are dedicating our resources to creating a Farcaster-native experience that authentically represents the songs that people are listening to everyday.

To share feedback on Sonata and notes - join the /sonata channel on Warpcast.

With love,

Sonata.