Recently, Musicoin adopted a controversial modification to its blockchain, nicknamed “UBI” or Universal Basic Income.” In this scheme, Musicoin miners would now subsidize the playing of Musicoin so that all listening on the platform would be free. Formerly, users had to have Musicoins already to play music on the system. This was a controversial move for the world’s first blockchain-enabled streaming site. Reddit, Steemit, and even Musicoin’s Slack channel was rife with debate on the merits of the system. Most detractors claimed that the model was unsustainable, that the free plays would eventually encumber the system and more resembled a Socialist implementation of blockchain technology. DJ Deadly Buda of The Hard Data got an exclusive interview with Musicoin’s founder, Isaac Mao, to address these issues and explain the rationale behind the UBI scheme.
This interview was uploaded to D-Tube first! And all 14-plus minutes are here to watch. In this interview, Isaac Mao seems to introduce a new concept to the blockchain, which Deadly Buda calls, “Proof of Play” where the user intelligence is adding to the Proof of Work ordinarily done by crypto mining. Also revealed is the precise reason the term “Universal Basic Income” was chosen.
