Guide to blockchain-based music streaming app development

Nowadays, streaming services are widely used for music consumption. There are many popular platforms, like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and many others. However, the artists aren’t happy with the low royalties they receive from these platforms. Blockchain can be a game-changer in this field — it can help make music streaming fair and transparent.

How Does Blockchain Change the Music Industry?

Let’s find out!

Advantages of using blockchain music streaming apps

The music industry is changing. We are in the midst of a transition to streaming, and there will soon be greater possibilities for artists to engage directly with their fans. Many artists are choosing blockchain-based streaming platforms for these possibilities.

Here’s a brief look at the advantages of using blockchain music streaming apps:

1.Greater transparency and accountability:

Blockchain technology enables a more transparent and accountable music ecosystem than ever before. It provides an immutable ledger to track payments and revenue and encourages artists to get paid fairly for their work.

2. Fan-to-artist engagement:

Artists can now engage directly with their fans through the platform or issue tokens to their fans and give them access to unique experiences, such as backstage access or other perks. They can even let fans vote on which song they should cover next!

3. Increased royalty payouts:

With blockchain, artists can get paid faster without giving up any rights or going through intermediaries.

4. Better digital experiences:

Blockchain technology is creating new business models that will ultimately enable better digital experiences by enabling more efficient payment processing and tracking of music rights ownership.

5. Reduces piracy:

Because of the decentralized system, every transaction on the blockchain is recorded and stored on a public ledger, which means that content creators will be able to trace where their music is being played and paid for.

The fact that payments are made directly from the consumer to the creator also helps eliminate intermediaries and ensure artists get precisely what they deserve.

How to build a music streaming app with blockchain?

Step 1. Choose your platform

To use blockchain for securing your app, you can choose from three platforms: Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Hyperledger. Each of them has an open-source distributed ledger that can be used to create other applications.

Step 2. Create a database

The most important part of music streaming (and any other app) is the database. The database should be designed carefully — each field needs a specific name and data type.

This allows you to avoid mistakes like “the data is not defined” or “the data type is incorrect.” To get started, we created a list of basic models for our blockchain music app:

• Users
• Artists
• Albums
• Tracks

Step 3. Add features to your music streaming App

The best apps are always simple and easy to use. A good rule of thumb is that you should be taking away complexity and making the app easier to use as you add functionality.

With that in mind, here are some features your music streaming app needs:

1. Music player

2. Playlist creation tool

3. Search bar

4. Profile page and login screen

Step 4. Integrate smart contracts

While you develop the backend of an app, it’s time to integrate smart contracts into the system. Smart contracts are pieces of code that run on the Ethereum blockchain and are responsible for managing a deal between two parties.

You should use smart contracts to transfer the money to artists. Smart contracts will allow you to build a trustful system based on blockchain technology that executes transactions automatically.

Step 5. Monetize your application

If you want to profit from your music app, you need to monetize it somehow. It can be done in several ways:

• Subscriptions. Create a paid subscription to the service and require users to pay for a monthly subscription. You can also offer free trials for the first month.
• In-app purchases. Allow users to buy certain features or albums they like.
• Advertisements. Put ads into your app and get paid every time someone sees them or clicks on them.

This technology can change how artists, music labels, and listeners enjoy their favorite music.

Streaming services have become immensely popular among those who enjoy the benefits of instant access to a seemingly endless catalog of music. Blockchain has proven valuable in numerous sectors and is likely to play a significant role in the creative industries, including music streaming.

In a nutshell, a decentralized system is a system that eliminates the need for trust in any central authority by using computer code to provide objective rules to allow peer-to-peer value transfer over the internet without risk of fraud. There are wide applications of the Blockchain outside of cryptocurrencies, and we believe music streaming apps would be an excellent way to show it off.