What are the benefits of DJ Node holders?

DJ Node is a way to reshape the decentralized music landscape, offering benefits to its holders. It's not just earning daily incentives, but an invitation to an exclusive membership.

Benefit 1: Daily incentives

A total of 300,000 $SNS tokens are shared by all holders every single day. With the halving mechanism, this amount will be halved every 2 years after the first year.

Benefit 2: Enhanced governance

The tokens you hold represent your membership in our community. As far as the community grows and evolves, holders will have a bigger direction from voting on key decisions to nominate tracks.

Benefit 3: Revenue sharing

Beyond getting a share of $SNS tokens, holders also benefit from revenue revenue-sharing mechanisms, including earning from the current $RUS ecosystem, airdrop opportunities, exclusive perks, and priority rights to music nominations.

What's the exclusivity of DJ Node?

The number of DJ Nodes is kept at 50,000 and will never increase in the future. The first 10k nodes are priced at the special rate of 600 USDT each for private sale. After the initial 10k, the price will increase by 25 USDT per 100 nodes sold.

What's the difference between $SNS and $RUS?

$SNS will be the primary token that holders of DJ Nodes can earn as a reward and share revenue of the Sonorus ecosystem. Basically, it represents your membership and your stake in Sonorus network. As it's the primary token, it's also the token that will be listed on exchanges.

$RUS is more specialized and plays a more crucial role in the Sonorus App for copy yields and copy trading. It may not have the same external trade-ability or recognition as $SNS.

Latest updates in Sonorus App

Update 1: Sell-back ratio increase

When you sell your copies back to Sonorus, now you get 85% of the current issue price for every copy, compared to the previous ratio of 40%. This new buyback ratio is set to improve user earnings, so we suggest a shift of your investment strategy from daily yields and record player maintenance to copy trading.

At the same time, the record player recharging costs are slightly increased to facilitate the sell-back.

Update 2: Removed Invite Codes

Now it's not a must for new users to join Sonorus app with an invite code, which is in anticipation of Sonorus Airdrop Season 2.

So a quick tip is that being active in Sonorus app will bring more airdrop points for existing users.

Recent milestones

We got validated on Magic Square, receiving 120,000 votes together with our community. It brings us the No.1 music platform under Magic Square and we've also received a trust badge as a highly respectable project.

Also, we saw immense growth in our Discord members over 50,000 with the release of Airdrop Season 1. We got tens of thousands of participants in the campaign who showed their interest in $SNS tokens.

We've also done partnerships with projects from Magic Square, Yuliverse, Relation, SecondLive, and many others.

We've seen a very big interest in DJ Node, with more than 1.5k sales in the first 2 weeks.

Core vision explanation by CEO Michael

Sonorus is building a decentralized and permissionless music release and discovery platform, in which artists do not have to market their music through big labels but directly engage with a vibrant music enthusiast community. And everyone in the community by being early supporters of music works will share the profits of the success of the music. This will break the dilemma of the current music industry where 80% of the market traffic and profits are eaten up by big labels.

We'll soon announce our roadmap for Q4 which focuses on two themes. The first one is to continuously build a better, more efficient, transparent, and importantly profitable music release system. The second is to continuously create value for the DJ Node holders and future $SNS holders.

In Q1 next year, we'll launch a project called Collector Network, in which a series of social features are going to be built, allowing our users to create their social profiles on Sonorus and showcase their music recommendations and part of achievements.

For DJ Node holders, they will not only enjoy specifically designed presentation of their profiles, but also higher rates in profile discovery, which means their music choices are much easier to be recognized by other music collectors in the network.

At the same time, in Q1, we are also introducing a series of loyalty rewards for our lovely community members who have been long supporting us on the way. And our rewards will especially favor $SNS token holders and DJ Node holders. So make sure you get your hands on the net.

Q&A Session

Why do followers on Twitter drop so much?

Due to our getting featured on some major news outlets that include our Twitter link, we've been under a very big bot attack, resulting in an immense increase and decrease in Twitter followers.

Do you have planned any new marketing campaigns?

Yes, we have planned many new marketing strategies and campaigns to bring more users from now until the next couple of months. We'll consistently push marketing and run creative campaigns to attract more users to our project.

Please explain more about the plans for the utility of $SNS tokens.

As the $SNS token will be a governance-oriented token, and the one we'll list on major exchanges, the $SNS token holders will enjoy revenue sharing from growing activities on the platform, and get involved in music release, publishing, and shaping the major decisions.

Why users can't sell record players?

This is something we will be doing in the future. But to make sure that everyone benefits from building a record player as an NFT, we have to ensure liquidity and a reasonable price system. The current priority is to improve the record system, and the record players will be NFTlized in the future.

When will the listing be?

It will take us some time to finalize the detailed time, and we'll share the details as soon as we can.

Is there going to be a staking mechanism for $SNS token holders or retail investors rather than the DJ Node holder?

Yes. This is part of the loyalty reward system that I mentioned in next year's roadmap. So there will be stakeholders. And we do have portions reserved for communities and for all sorts of rewards. So staking is definitely a big part of it.

For further information on the AMA and the following AMA stage, please join Sonorus Discord Servers: https://discord.gg/sonorus-protocol

Being recognized on Magic Square with 121,207 votes and a score of 4.2. It shows that many people believe in what we're doing with 80% saying "yes" to our vision.

What is Magic Square?

Magic Square is a premier Web3 App Store backed by Binance Labs, serving as a bridge between the conventional internet "Web2" and the decentralized "Web3". It offers a curated platform for users to discover and engage with decentralized applications, games, and experiences. By setting stringent standards for inclusion, Magic Square ensures that only the most innovative and trustworthy projects find a place on their platform.

A Big Thank You to Our Community

Every step of this journey, our community has been with us. Every vote and every message has helped shape Sonorus. We're thankful for the immense support from our community and voters. As we keep moving forward, and shaping the future of music sharing with the decentralized voice of the community!

Having the Sonorus App featured in the Magic Store is a testament to our dedication. At the heart of Sonorus lies our core mission: to revolutionize the way it is enjoyed and shared. We're not just changing how music is shared; we're giving the power back to the listeners, ensuring they have a voice and choice in the music they consume and rewarding them in the process.

Our partnership with Magic Square is a testament to our shared vision for the future. Sonorus, with its commitment to revolutionizing music sharing, and Magic Square, dedicated to curating the best of Web3, are collaboratively creating a gateway between web2 and web3.

Earning Points

Main App Actions (Highly Rewarding)

Your in-app actions in the Sonorus app are not only greatly valued but will also accumulate points. Even between our Airdrop Season campaigns, all activity in our app will reward you during our upcoming SNS token launch.

One-time Actions

Join our Galxe, QuestN Server: 100 points

Discord Engagement

Points will be given based on your Discord Levels

• Upgrade to Level 1 in DC: 50 points

• Upgrade to Level 5 in DC: 100 points

• Upgrade to Level 8 in DC: 150 points

• Upgrade to Level 11 in DC: 200 points

• Upgrade to Level 15 in DC: 300 points

Please refrain from spamming with repeated "hi" or "hello" messages, as it may result in a ban. We encourage normal and meaningful conversations.

The Process

• Earn Points: Engage with Sonorus and participate in the mentioned actions to accumulate points.

• Point Calculations: Your points are continuously updated based on your engagement and actions.

• Final SNS Airdrop: The amount of points you earned will determine your final SNS airdrop in the final stage.

• Claim Tokens: Convert your Airdrop points into SNS tokens at the end of the airdrop phase.

Earning Points

One-time Actions:

• Join our Galxe, QuestN Server: 100 points

Actions in the Main App:

If you purchased songs in the Sonorus App before September 15th, you will be awarded with airdrop point amount depending on the total amount spent.

Your in-app behavior will earn points in future airdrop seasons, including but not limited to investing in songs, recharging and upgrading your Record Players, and boosting song rankings.

Discord Engagement:

Points will be given based on your Discord Levels:

• Upgrade to Level 1 in DC: 50 points

• Upgrade to Level 5 in DC: 100 points

• Upgrade to Level 8 in DC: 150 points

• Upgrade to Level 11 in DC: 200 points

• Upgrade to Level 15 in DC: 300 points

• Please refrain from spamming with repeated "hi" or "hello" messages, as it may result in a ban. We encourage normal and meaningful conversations.

For Existing Users:

• Existing users' points are calculated based on the above standards for Copy purchases and Recharge actions.

• Purchases made using SONO before July 31, 2023, will be converted at a rate of 1 SONO = 4 RUS.

The Process

• Earn Points: Engage with Sonorus and participate in the mentioned actions to accumulate points.

• Point Calculations: Your points are continuously updated based on your engagement and actions.

• Final SNS Airdrop: The amount of points you earned will determine your final SNS airdrop in the final stage.(Note: Airdrop points will not be airdropped at a 1:1 ratio, rather a % based system on the total amounts accumulated compared to the allocated airdrop pool)

• Claim Tokens: Convert your Airdrop points into SNS tokens at the end of the airdrop phase.

In the next few versions, Sonorus will focus on creating “Music Ownership“ for all the audiences, enabling ownership trading, bringing up higher earning efficiency and new way to promote songs of potential. Check the Roadmap, and witness the revolution of music industry.

Q2 2023

Project "Free Market"

• New music copyright NFT pricing mechanism - Your music NFT's price will go up when it's bought by more people!

• Music copyright NFT marketplace - You can trade your music copies now!

Project "New Weave"

• Let the most liked music stand out! - Music with more active copies can collect more RUS tokens via sharing and listening, up to 10x!

Project "Infra Upgrade"

• Use BNB directly to purchase music copyright NFTs - No need to switch to SONO anymore

• Log in directly with your crypto wallet

• If you don't have one, we will easily create a new wallet for you via our collaboration with Particle Network

Q3 2023

Project "Stargaze"

• Music Artist Portal: Brand new platform for ALL artists to submit and release their music works via Sonorus protocol

• Music Launchpad: Let the community decide what music to launch and get early access to genesis music copyright NFTs

Project "AI"

• Mysterious top AI artists will join Sonorus and release exclusive Next-Gen music on Sonorus. Get ready！

Project "Record Player"

• Upgrade to the Record Player NFT system - various ways to manage and trade your Record Player NFTs, and other mysterious NFT traits

• New Record Player NFT forging mechanism, and chances to claim rare editions

In our previous articles, we criticized the current music industry and underscored how it is potentially eating the revenues that should have belonged to musicians and listeners and thereby harming the overall industry in the long run. We also introduced how Sonorus is planning to revolutionize the industry through our two original key mechanisms: listen to earn and promote to earn.

In order to let more people know what we are doing, invite more people to join us to create a fairer music world, and find like-minded talents to join us, we joined Gitcoin Grant Round 14!

What is Gitcoin Grants?

Gitcoin Grants is a series of recurring fundraisings rounds that encourages people to discover and fund public projects. Projects cover from blockchain infra, to Web3 diversity, to climate change, to Web3 social, etc. Gitcoin Grants hope to explore the potentiability of Web3 fully, fund and sustain the projects, and include people with different backgrounds into the Web3 universe.

People can either submit their own grants or donate to those projects they have interests in. Gitcoin DAO will also match public crowfunds! Thus, your decision will decide where the money in the matching pool to go and your support will be very important to us!

How Can You Support Sonorus?

Step 1: You can find our grant page here .

Step 2: Click “Add to Cart” on rhe right column.

Step 3: Check out your cart! You can find the cart icon on the top navigation bar!

Step 4: Finish your donation. You can decide how much you want to donate. Even 1 DAI is super appreciated!

The round will end at 6PM MDT on June 23. Thus, you can still support us!

If you want to know more about us, you can find us at:

Website: https://sonorus.network/#/index

Discord：https://discord.gg/rQf4Vz2Brp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonorusOfficial

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonorusProtocol

Zalo: https://zalo.me/g/xichaj240

In our second blog, we introduced the current attempts from different Web3 projects on revolutionizing the music industry. However, as we concluded, the currently available solutions cannot bring us a new world where we can encourage people to scout new talents and music pieces.

Where is the bottleneck?

Sonorus believes it is in the stage of distribution and promotion. In the traditional music industry, music distribution and promotion are under the control of a small group of people who are working in big labels and voicing as super KOLs. They recommend, and normal users follow. With zero financial incentives, normal listeners are not motivated to discover and scout those talented artists with less promotion visibility. Thus, we believe if we want to make those unpopular voices be heard, we need to decentralize the recommendation channels and empower normal users.

Our Solution

Specifically, Sonorus proposes two incentive mechanisms to encourage normal users to scout and promote music. Both two mechanisms are built on the à-la-carte model, which means selling music for a per-unit price. For the anti-cheating purpose, only those who have paid the streaming fee for a song can share the streaming fee generated from the piece.

The first mechanism is called listen-to-earn, which aims to incentive users to be early listeners of a song and thereby shift traffic from the hottest pieces to a broader pool. Consider this, if you can share the streaming fee if you are the first 25% of listeners who’ve paid for the song, you will have extra motivation to listen to those with fewer clicks because you can get rewards earlier and faster.

In detail, each piece of music has an individual token pool with 30% of total streaming payments for it. Tokens in the pool will be used to reward listeners in the order of the user’s payment. For each user, they are allowed to have a token return rate capped at 20%.

The second mechanism is called promote-to-earn, which is designed to encourage users to share their favorite music with the network and let more people find it.

Sonorus believes everyone should have the decision power on which piece to go trending. At least for myself, I found a lot of new songs from my friends’ playlists. Every time I “steal” the music name from them, I think “oh, they should get paid for their promotion” but unfortunately it never happens.

To change the condition, Sonorus is building a transparent music distribution system through trustless and permissionless blockchain smart contracts and a stable tokenomics system to reward contributors fairly. Revenue from each additional user is shared among all previous promoters, while the most direct promoter gets the biggest revenue share besides the artists.

Sounds complicated? The graph below is a good example: user1 found music on Sonorus directly and shared the music with user2, user2 then shared music with user3. The payment of user1 will only be shared with music NFT holder, that of user2 goes to NFT holder and user1, and that of user3 goes to holder, user1 and user2, etc.

Want to know more details about the mechanism? Read our whitepaper.

Excited about seeing how you can join our exciting revolution? Or have advice on our solution? Come to join us at:

Website: https://sonorus.network/#/index

Discord：https://discord.gg/rQf4Vz2Brp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonorusOfficial

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonorusProtocol

Zalo: https://zalo.me/g/xichaj240

See Also: Is Web3 the Saviour of the Music Industry? Yes, But Not In the Current Approach

In the traditional music industry, big labels decide which singers to promote and what type of songs we can discover. They usually sign singers at a very early stage, to control their music style and even their social image. That’s why many people feel music has become more commercial than artistic. Independent musicians are rising, but most of them still keep underground and are hard to be scouted.

In the whole process, audiences are passive receivers. In the Web2 era, RSS used to be considered an approach to breaking down the monopoly of streaming services giants. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator, which constantly monitors sites for new content, removing the need for the user to check them manually. However, RSS still requires users to be able to know where to find good music, especially those unpopular pieces, and to keep updating their subscribed lists to follow newly emerging stars. Obviously, it is not an easy task for most music listeners. Listening to music is not a must-have thing for them, but a good-to-have thing. Thus, people need solid incentives to explore music and keep listening. They need real incentives.

At the same time, the traditional music model ignores the contribution of normal listeners. Let’s consider a question. How do you find a new song and add it to your playlist? You might find a new piece from your friend’s playlist, from a random person’s personal blog, or from a party. In summary, you might find music everywhere. Music distribution is naturally a decentralized process and many distributions happen within people’s social networks instead of a centralized music promotion or recommendation project. However, 100% of advertisement payments go to those centralized music projects, and the real promoters — listeners — receive zero.

In a word, the current music distribution system neither motivates people to find good music nor rewards those who spread music to a broader scale. However, in the Web3 era, things can be different with blockchain technology. The popular X-to-earn model can play a big role here. You are the early listener of a song? You should be rewarded for your effort to find new music! You share music on your social media and bring larger exposure? You should be rewarded for your contribution to spreading a good voice. You are willing to share your streaming data with developers to develop new DApps? You should definitely be rewarded for sharing your digital assets — data.

In the new system, each minor effort can be seen and rewarded. When listeners are more motivated to find new and possibly unpopular music and share it, more musicians would love to start creating something and try something new, and the whole music industry can thereby keep attracting the most talented and creative brains to keep it healthy and vital.

Without music-to-earn, the music industry would be dying. Trust me.

Sonorus is hoping to provide a complete music-to-earn model to lead this revolutionary experiment in the music industry. Sounds exciting to you? Find us at:

Website: https://sonorus.network/#/index

Discord：https://discord.gg/rQf4Vz2Brp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonorusOfficial

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonorusProtocol

Zalo: https://zalo.me/g/xichaj240

In our first piece, we revealed how the current music streaming services are robbing musicians ‘ pockets and gaming the recommendation system. Many people might believe the solution should be simple — independent distribution and cheap production hardware, one to make the distribution process more transparent and one to lower down the music production fee so that artists can save more money for marketing. Do those two solutions work? Yes but no. They might slightly ease the pressure on artists but not solve the problem radically. We still need to find a way to reach the point where artists are treated fairly.

Will Web3 be the savior? In some ways, yes. Similar to DeFi exchanges trying to dismantle the power of bank and creating a bankless transaction system, Web3 in the music industry is to snatch power away from monolithic middlepeople, for example, record labels and streaming giants, and return the power to decide how much a piece of music is valued to those who consume the music. For example, when you listen to a song on Spotify, you seldom think if you were Spotify, how much you were willing to pay to sign an exclusive contract with this artist. You just listen and give it a like or dislike. However, in a music NFT marketplace, you are empowered to price through buying music NFTs.

The idea sounds solid, but not all solid ideas evolve to revolutionary changes. As mentioned before, “ we still need to find a way to reach the point where artists are treated fairly”. What is this point? Specifically, we need to solve a 2D problem — discovery and distribution. If the traffic still focuses on the top 1% of the artists, then NFTs are only bringing more wealth to those who are already wealthy. Unfortunately, it is still the main case of the industry. We constantly see prestigious singers announcing their decisions to launch NFTs or host virtual concerts, but in order to build a more consistently developing music industry, we need to introduce more new talents and discover more diverse music.

We have noticed some players have taken the first step to try. Audius is currently the most widely known Web3 music streaming service. Its user experience is very smooth even for Web2 users, since you do not need a crypto wallet to start your exploration. However, its protocol focuses more on the distribution side. Based on its white paper, artists should be able to receive 90% of the streaming revenue. However, it does not solve the discover side well. Even though Audius launched a new rewards system in February, in which fans and artists will be given $AUDIO cryptocurrency tokens for taking certain in-app actions, such as inviting their friends, downloading the mobile app, daily listening streaks, uploading their songs, and much more, those actions do not incentivize listeners to jump out of their music comfort zone and scout those unfamiliar names.

Another big player, Rocki, said it would try to financially reward listeners who find and promote the music, but it is still taking the traditional subscription model that Spotify and Apple Music are doing, which makes it hard for artists to control the portion of streaming revenues they are willing to share with those who spread the music out. In other words, its payment model will be an obstacle on the distribution stage.

Thus, Web3 might be the Saviour of the music industry, but it would fail if we kept doing exactly how we are doing now. Sonorus aims to provide a new model to make both discovery and distribution easier and thus, benefit both artists and listeners. If you want to know more about what we are coming up with, welcome to join our Discord and follow our Twitter. Our journey to revolutionize the music industry is also yours.

Find Us at:

Discord：https://discord.gg/rQf4Vz2Brp

Twitter：https://twitter.com/SonorusOfficial

As the overall trend in copyright industries, the percentage of copyright royalties has declined among the total income for individual artists, not only because users are used to the increasingly free content available online, but also since those services with copyright are not paying artists fairly, either.

Currently, copyright royalties are even not among the top three artist revenue streams, even if artists still have to upload their music to streaming services to exist in today’s musical economy. Performance generates the largest revenue now. However, there is a chicken-and-egg conundrum — You need to have popular songs on streaming services to receive performance and earn money, but you also have to perform to support yourself to produce and market music financially.

Thus, young artists usually choose to sign a contract with complete control given to the labels. It sounds similar to startups looking for funding support from VCs. Yes, you will receive corresponding support on your music release, social media management, or even wardrobe, but simultaneously, you are also losing your freedom to decide who you are, as a music creator. As many listeners complain day after day, perfect assembly-line products occupy the platform instead of talented creators coming up.

An Indie Music Expert Explains Why Artists Are Turning Away From Record Deals

Ditto Music CEO Lee Parsons explains why more artists are following Chance the Rapper's lead and eschewing traditional label deals.

https://www.rollingstone.com

What makes things even more complicated is artists can neither upload their music directly nor receive royalties from streaming services. A music distributor, such as TuneCore, DistroKid, or CDBaby, is required. These websites are the conduit between the artist and streaming services providers. Artists need to sign up with an email address, and then choose where to upload their efforts. When royalties are generated, the return channel is also from services to distributors and finally artists.

Oh, help. The process is so complicated. Yes, it is. Too many sides are involved in the music release process and all of them are also grabbing streaming revenue share from musicians’ hands. The complicated process results in an irregular payment system in an opaque manner. By schedule, artists should receive their royalties on a quarterly basis, whereas delay is more frequent than punctuality, and based on the research from Berklee College of Music, 20–50% of royalty revenues just mysteriously vanish and never arrive in the right pockets.

Ok, I know I have complained too much. So, what is the exact amount an artist can receive per stream? Forbes reports, that streaming services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play, and Pandora pay artists approximately $5,000 to $15,000 for every 1 million plays of a song. Thus, given the minimum wage rate in California is $14 per hour, an artist would need roughly 400,000 streams to earn an amount comparable to the state monthly minimum wage. Also, the money per stream received by artists from streaming services is decreasing. In 2014, they paid $.00521 on average, but two years later, the average rate dropped to $.00437. By 2017, the average pay rate had been reduced again to around $.00397, according to artist-rights site The Trichordist. According to Business Insider, Spotify has paid artists as little as $.0033 per stream, with other sites reporting upwards of $.0054 on average in 2021. In May 2020, classical violinist Tasmin Little revealed she was paid approximately $15.67 for six months of plays — “around 5–6 million streams” — on Spotify.

Oh, unbelievable. When a system fails to reward its key contributors, how can it keep sustainable? It might be time for us to reconsider how to recreate the system. After all, as a listener, I want to see more music geniuses enrich my music list. They deserve more.

Sonorus hopes to make some contributions to the process —to bring artists financial rewards compatible with their work and bring traffic to those unknown but talented artists. If you are interested in our plan, welcome to join our discord group . We are making some real changes.

Find Us at:

Discord：https://discord.gg/rQf4Vz2Brp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonorusNetwork