Ditto Promotes Accessible Finance for Streaming Artists with the Launch of Defi Platform
Global music distribution service Ditto has unveiled the latest addition to its service lineup for musicians with a blockchain-based financing platform named Opulous.
Opulous Peer-to-Peer Lending Platform Serves as a Loan Pool Designed to Help Artists
Ditto continues its efforts to improve the value chain for artists. Unlike other decentralized finance (defi) protocols, Opulous reflects asset-based lending, which bridges the physical and digital worlds. The Opulous’ defi lending mechanism, which is being developed on the Algorand public blockchain, leverages music copyrights’ tangibility through a smart contract setup that automatically handles principal and interest payments along with distributions to investors.
For musicians already receiving royalties, this presents a unique opportunity to monetize their assets or contribute to the pool to stake other artists. When seeking capital, artists can access funds by collateralizing loans from Opulous’ Music Copyright Pools with their music royalties.
Besides digitizing music as an asset class, the move will invite more democratized participation from artists and investors seeking to gain a foothold in the music industry, which is undergoing tremendous annual growth and expected to double in size by 2030. Artists benefit from interest rates starting as low as 4%, while investors in the copyright pools can add exposure to music royalties as an asset class for 10% returns per annum.
Per Ditto CEO Lee Parsons,
Opulous cuts out traditional banking, providing musicians with a platform with minimal interest payments, while giving investors the chance to stake a claim in one of the most exciting and fastest-growing financial industries in the world.
Ditto, which has already processed more than $1 billion in royalties for its 250,000-plus users, sees industry revenues doubling in the next ten years, building a compelling investment thesis. In keeping with Opulous’ mission to democratize musicians’ financial access, users outside the Ditto ecosystem are welcome to join the peer-to-peer lending framework.
Opulous has raised $1.5 million in funding to-date from BASIC, Borderless Capital, Kosmos Capital, Somesing, and TrustVerse. Roll out of the platform’s minimum viable product (MVP) is anticipated in two months as development proceeds.
Elastos, which built its decentralized application (dapp) platform and currency (ELA) to protect users’ digital assets and creations, will be among the first token staking partners for Opulous’ proof-of-stake consensus protocol. Opulous, in concert with Elastos, will allow investors to stake their Elastos (ELA) coins within the Music Copyright Pools.
According to Clarence Liu, the VP of Development at the Elastos Foundation,
Elastos and Ditto Music have been researching how blockchain can address fundamental inefficiencies in the music industry. Access to funding – which Opulous will address – is only the tip of the iceberg.
“Our collaboration has much more in the pipeline and our community is definitely set on using the forward momentum sparked by recent world events to introduce new users to the decentralized internet ideals set by Elastos,” Liu concludes.
What do you think about the defi application for musicians? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
