This little-known rapper made $250K in just 7 hours selling music NFTs
Coinage sits down with Web3 rapper Spottie Wifi to chat about why music NFTs are the next big thing
By: Zack Abrams
April 28, 2023
On August 18th, 2021, Miguel Mora released his debut album as his new persona — Spottie WiFi, modeled after a CryptoPunk NFT he had purchased a few months prior. But rather than releasing “I’m Spottie” on streaming services, Spottie sold the album as a collection of 2,000 NFTs, with thirty-one different variations.
In sixty seconds, the album had sold out, netting Spottie the equivalent of nearly $200,000 dollars. That’s the equivalent of tens of millions of Spotify streams.
Spottie sees his success as proof of the viability of the thousand fan theory.
“The thousand fan theory says that as an indie artist, especially as a solo artist like myself, I don't need millions of fans,” said Spottie. “I really just need a few hundred or even a thousand fans. If I can provide enough value and enough entertainment that a thousand people are willing to pay $100 a year, then all of a sudden I'm a six figure artist.”
Spottie’s approach is a bit different than some of the other Web3 music moguls we interviewed. While platforms like Sound and Royal allow artists to share royalties with fans who buy in using NFTs, Spottie instead includes commercial rights to the song or elements of the song in the NFT itself, though Spottie retains the masters and publishing rights.
“All of my collectors have a mutually aligned incentive with me where we all want the music to become popular, because if the music becomes popular and becomes in demand, then they have a token that they can actually monetize,” said Spottie. “And at the same time, I'm not promising or giving up any of my royalties.”
One major area of agreement between everyone we talked to: Web3 can allow for deeper connections between musicians and artists, turning fans into collectors or partial owners of their favorite music.
“I also encourage artists to figure out ways to give actual utility with their NFTs because I think that's going to be important for longevity,” said Spottie.
You can watch our full interview with Spottie above, and watch our full episode on Web3 music here.
