You've heard the pitch before: "Upload your music to our platform, build your audience, and we'll take care of the rest."... LOL... We can tell from years in the industry that is complete bull crap.
What "taking care of the rest" usually means: 30% off the top for the platform, another 50-80% if you have a label, algorithmic discovery that favors whoever is already winning or whose lable has the biggest budget, and a payout statement you need a spreadsheet to understand and not giving you any real results.
BlockTunes is a different arrangement. Flat 5% platform fee. No label required. No algorithm gatekeeping your reach. Every streaming payout goes directly on-chain to you and your edition holders the moment a qualifying play happens. You can read every transaction yourself, on the blockchain. Heck we have even built our AI credit system to work on-chain.
Now we know that musicians and blockchains don't always mix. There is a ton of confusion and onboarding nightmares. We are working on simplifying this process the best we can, and hopefully make it even easier in the future!
Getting Started
Step 1: Create a free account
Go to app.blocktunes.net/signup if you don't already have a Hive account. Pick a username, choose a password. Your Hive blockchain keys are generated and saved in your browser using our Smart Lock system and never sent to any server. You also need to download and save them somewhere safe. Your account is live in seconds with no third-party site and no seed phrase ceremony.
During signup, choose Smart Lock (recommended for most artists): set a 5-digit PIN and your keys are encrypted and stored in your browser. From that point on, every transaction is one click and a PIN. If you really want to run down the rabbit hole, Hive Keychain is the preferred wallet by most power users on Hive. You can install it as an extention on your browser, or use the mobile app and visit Blocktunes from inside the app.
Step 2: Set up your profile
Upload a profile picture and cover image. Add your bio, genre, and links. Add your crypto wallet addresses (BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE, XMR) if you want to receive crypto tips directly. You can also set your profile description, location, and any external link you want to use. Note, you are limited to 1 link, so if you have many, think about creating a Linktree page and using that URL.
Step 3: Get whitelisted
The BlockTunes NFT marketplace uses a whitelist to maintain quality. Submit your application from the NFT Marketplace section of your profile. It asks for links to your existing music and a brief description of what you're putting out. Whitelist fees are burned, they go to no wallet anyone controls. They're permanently removed from MUSIC supply. You are required to stake 1000 MUSIC tokens in the system as well to be whitelisted, so you are just as invested in the ecosystem as the rest of us! Plus, the more MUSIC you stake, the more AI credits you get per day to use the tools, so there is a bonus right there!
Step 4: Mint your music
Once whitelisted, head to the Mint page. Upload your audio file and cover art. Set your edition count (up to 10 per track). Add your metadata: title, description, tags, genre, and language if you like. Set a price per edition in $MUSIC if you want to sell them, or hold all 10 yourself and earn the full holder pool on every play. Heck, you don't even have to mint editions other than just the 1 you hold. That is perfectly fine too. Again, your music, your rules!
Your NFT files are pinned to the BlockTunes IPFS node and served through our own gateway. Your music doesn't live on a third party's server hoping they stay online.
Submit. Sign the transaction. Your track is live on the Listen page and able to earn streaming revenue instantly!
How You Earn
Every qualifying play of your track triggers an automatic on-chain payout split four ways:
| Recipient | Share | Genesis Era Amount |
|---|---|---|
| You (artist) | 50% | 8 $MUSIC + 0.050 HIVE |
| Edition holders (split proportionally) | 40% | 6.4 $MUSIC + 0.040 HIVE |
| BlockTunes | 5% | 0.8 $MUSIC + 0.005 HIVE |
| A&R rep (or you, if no referral) | 5% | 0.8 $MUSIC + 0.005 HIVE |
Worth calling out the HIVE piece specifically: on top of the MUSIC you earn, we pay out real HIVE from the blocktunesdao treasury on every qualifying stream. HIVE is something you can swap for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or anything else you want. Cash it out, or stake it to power up your account to earn even more Hive and have a bigger vote on posts and in chain governance if that's your thing. Your MUSIC stays as your utility token on the platform, it's what gives you access to editions, AI tools, and the wider ecosystem. So you've got two separate income streams from every play, one you can take off-platform and one that works for you inside it.
This Hive is seeded by us and will build by earning through an HBD savings endowment out of our own crypto saving, which isn't much after building the infrastructure to run all of this. We also suppliment with MUSIC tokens sales collected through curation.
We also setup the 
The artist 50% is yours regardless of how many editions you've sold. If you hold none of your own editions, you still earn 50% of every payout from your music forever. If you hold editions, you also earn your proportional share of the holder pool. Also, if no one referred you to the platform, that 5% A&R share comes back to you as well. So in your early days, you could be earning 55% of every payout.
Editions Are a Revenue Share Tool, Not Just a Collectible
Think carefully about how you use your editions.
Hold all 10 yourself: you earn 50% (artist) plus 100% of the 40% holder pool. Total: 90% of every payout, forever.
Sell 5 editions at 500 $MUSIC each: you raise 2,500 $MUSIC upfront, and you still earn 50% artist share plus 50% of the holder pool (since you hold 5 of 10). Fans who bought in are now financially motivated to promote your music, every play they drive earns them a return.
Sell all 10: you raise 5,000 $MUSIC (at 500 each), earn your 50% artist share on every play, and your fans earn the entire holder pool. Your superfans are now your street team with skin in the game.
There's no single right answer. It depends on whether you want immediate revenue, recurring income, or a community of financially invested fans doing your marketing for you. But we give you the opportunity to basically turn yourself into a business using our platform.
The Genesis Era Advantage
We are in the Genesis Era right now. The streaming reward is 16 $MUSIC per qualifying play, the highest rate this platform will ever pay. The reward halves every two years, for MUSIC tokens only. Artists who mint now and build a listener base while the rate is at its peak will earn at the highest possible rate for the longest possible time.
This is not a sales pitch. It's math built into the streaming system. The earlier you're on the platform, the more the streaming rewards work in your favor.
What About AI-Generated Music?
You're welcome here. Seriously. We can't wait to hear what you and your tools have made together. There is still a person behind every prompt, a person with taste, vision, and something to say and may not have known how to say it before because you may not feel like you had the talent to say it. AI can give those 'silent artists' a voice! If that's you, mint it! Heck, we even give you AI tools to help you on your journey and have more to come when we can earn more to build out our ecoysystem a bit more!
Get Started Now
Accounts are free. Most likely if you are reading this, you already have a Hive account, but even if you do or if not... Setup takes minutes and a little crypto investment into HIVE and MUSIC. But look at it as an investment not just in the platform, but in yourself, your music business, and the future of the industry! And the moment your track is minted, it appears on the Listen page and streaming rewards start flowing when people come and listen.
If you have questions about the whitelist process, a minting issue, or anything else on the platform, Harmony, the BlockTunes AI support assistant, is in the bottom-right corner of every page. She knows your account data and can answer most questions directly. If something needs a staff member, the Submit Ticket button in the chat opens a private support thread in the BlockTunes Discord with your full conversation already loaded as context.
The cool part about Blocktunes is that we are not just a streaming platform with a token payout, we have a whole community built in that also pays out! So you can mint your music, then make posts promoting it to the community. This is great for those without much of, or no following. The Hive/Blocktunes music community is a globally diverse community of artists just like you and the ability to build a albiet currently small, but global fan base just by getting involved! Get likes on your posts that actually pay too! It's really kind of a win win situation that you can't find anywhere else.
Create Your Account
Apply for Whitelist
Posted using BlockTunes