The electronic music duo, The Chainsmokers, best known for catchy hits like “Closer” and “Paris,” will include a drop of 5,000 NFTs with the release of their new album “So Far So Good.”
This is the most high-profile example to date of musicians using NFTs to share royalties with fans.
While artists like Nas and Diplo have issued royalty-generating NFTs tied to specific songs, this is the first time a band has done so for free for an entire album.
Taggart and bandmate Alex Pall explained to Decrypt.co that they identified their most loyal fans, 5000 of whom will receive an NFT, by analyzing data from concert sales, music streams and Discord activity.
The NFTs will entitle Chainsmokers fans to a share of royalties, but also to additional perks like access to a members-only section of The Chainsmokers’ Discord channel, and opportunities to meet with the duo directly.
Those who receive the NFTs will receive notifications on a quarterly or semi-annual basis about when they receive a payment.
If they choose to sell the NFT, a smart contract (essentially a computer program) will deliver 7.5% of the proceeds to The Chainsmokers (one of the appeals of NFTs for artists is the ability to receive a cut of secondary sales), which the duo says they will donate to the albums’ song writers.
The new album drops on Friday and the NFTs will be given out a few days later on May 17.
In order to distribute the NFTs, The Chainsmokers are relying on a platform called Royal, which uses the Polygon network, and is behind the recent NFT drops of Nas and other prominent artists.
The Chainsmokers say they have arranged to release the NFTs in a way that doesn’t require any crypto knowledge on the part of their fans.
While those fans who do know crypto can arrange to receive the NFT directly in their Web3 wallet, novices can ask Royal to create a wallet for them and rely on the site to display and store it.
In order to eliminate friction for fans, the duo has also arranged for them to be able to acquire and transfer the NFTs without any transaction costs.
