Population’s interest in NFTs exploded last year and became a world that companies and people want to jump into. NFTs are a tool that brings security especially for art with integration of all information into a blockchain. The way Cardano works makes it attractive for NFTs, especially for music NFTs.
More and more people are interested in creating marketplaces for selling NFTs, but there are 2 important parts often neglected.
The first one is how to attract people who are not aware of crypto and NFTs or not into new technologies? The Rythmeet platform will comprise 2 main parts. The first one is described in the proposal named “Rythmeet:P2P music network platform” under the category “F8: DApps and Integrations” and seeks to attract and bring everyone with interest in music for playing, meeting other musicians, finding a place where to perform or even funding scholarships for music students. Rythmeet has been thought of for everyone and will be developed for everyone to feel comfortable with crypto money. Moreover, our vision is to develop the platform regarding users' recommendations and being part of the Cardano community, we wish to collaborate, link and bridge our platform to other projects/platforms to allow users to navigate into the crypto world and discover new features in an easy way.
The second one refers to the NFT security. Generally, the original file containing the art creation is stocked into a server like Amazon or Google. Then, when minted, the address/location of the file is integrated at the NFT into the blockchain. The problem is that if the art file is removed from this location voluntarily or by mistake, if the account is deleted or if the server crashes, the NFT referring to it becomes useless. This can be detrimental for buyers who will lose their investment, but also for artists who will lose all credibility and this could end their career. For this purpose, we won’t use the common path but, instead, we will use Arweave. Arweave is a platform allowing any artist to integrate their art into a blockchain, and that, forever. This will be a huge security for artists and for buyers. For this part, we will work in collaboration with the team of Albert Feghaly who proposed the project “PanDAO: Focus on dDataStorage” within the category “F8: Cross-Chain Collaboration”. For more information about the strategy, you can have a look at his proposal.
Here is the description of the second part of the platform which will propose a marketplace for music NFTs, called Rythmeet (rm)NFTs.
The music world is a billion dollar industry that mainly brings money to big companies. Moreover, contracts with big corporations often trap artists under a specific label that has the total control of their art. To be consistent with our vision of this music world FOR MUSICIANS, we want to develop an NFT platform dedicated to music, giving the opportunity to all musicians to easily monetize their creations without a middleman. Also, integrating music NFTs into the Cardano blockchain will help the original artists to follow how their tracks are used, protect and help them to collect unclaimed royalties if necessary.
Only a very few number of music NFT platforms exist and artists have to figure out how to deal with minting and wallets which makes it very technical. Rythmeet is designed to contain all tools artists will need to sell their creations, without requiring knowledge in crypto money or NFTs in order to let them focus on the most important: their music. Their music will be minted as rmNFTs that will represent limited editions of artist creations made on the platform and stored in their own wallet. It will represent an interesting source of revenue for them. On the other hand, people will be able to discover new artists they like and purchase from them to encourage artist developments. We can also easily imagine that rmNFTs acquired from an artist that is unknown at the time of the purchase will gain in value as the artist becomes more and more famous. Then, these rmNFTs are not just an investment, they become part of music history, written into Cardano blockchain. We believe that our website will allow everyone to identify new talented artists and support them in their career development. Music is present in every single country on the planet, heard in most houses and cars, therefore linking the rmNFT model to the Cardano ecosystem will drastically expand the network and number of transactions of this cryptocurrency.
Since our goal is to bring people who are not aware or comfortable with cryptocurrencies, we will allow people to pay using their own money or Cardano to make people discover this cryptocurrency and become more familiar with it. We do not want to affray them with crypto and that's why our strategy is to familiarize them with this platform. Simple tutorials will be created to explain how to buy Cardano for those who do not already have and how to use every feature of the platform. To encourage people to use Cardano, fees will be lower for transactions using it (2% VS 4% using other currencies).
The minting feature will comprise several steps:
1-Linking the original file containing the musician creation from Arweave into the contract.
2-Payment of minting fees from the artist. We want the fees to be minimal to allow all kinds of artists, famous or not, to use our platform. These fees will be lower if they are paid in Cardano versus other currencies.
3-Minting the specific amounts of NFTs indicated by the artist, crafting them into the Cardano blockchain and burning the requested amount of tokens.
4-Giving back the NFTs to the artist once the script will have validated the number of burned tokens. NFTs will be visible by the artist in his personal wallet and in his Rythmeet account.
Execution steps:
Stage 1: Project Definition
The first stage of the process will revolve mostly in taking the time to formally define the rmNFT standard, its underlying legal component and every option/feature of the platform. The process and approach are easy to define, with integration of a CDN for content management requirements and development of a .NET or SQL Database for all required on-site functions. At this stage, we will have a clear understanding of what we are setting out to achieve, including:
Target audience: Defining our online target market will help the designers understand target users' preferences, study their online habits and develop wireframes and interfaces that are most likely to result in great user experience.
Competition: This is one of the key elements for the research phase and it will allow us to analyze the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, and develop a strategy that will result in a market-leading website.
Stage 2: Planning
Based on the data we collect during Stage 1, we will be able to create:
A sitemap: This bird's eye view of our site is a map that determines the list of pages, their placement and relationship on the website. It includes both the user-facing elements and those intended for web crawlers only (e.g. Google). A site map helps define and organize web content, allowing our strategist and designer to go deeper into planning the look, feel and functionality for each page.
A wireframe: This, on the other hand, is the layout of each individual page of the site. It outlines and maps out the elements on the website and how the website will function.
Stage 3: Design
The user interface design stage will introduce our branding and complete the look and feel of our website. This is where we put our creative minds together to come up with a visual representation of our idea and brand. By the end of this, we will have a clear idea of what the look of the website in its entirety will be. From the home page to the inner pages, and what users will see when navigating through different sections of the website. For our consumers, this will show how they travel through different product categories, what they would see on individual product pages, and what the buying journey will look like.
Stage 4: Content Creation
By this stage, we will have entered the early stages of the actual development cycle. Once the designs and layouts of the website have been finalized, we will begin the content creation process which encompasses planning, writing and editing various forms of website content, including:
· Landing pages
· Product/service description
· Testimonials
· Case studies
· Blog posts
· Videos
· Images
· NFTs
This makes use of our skilled writers who will create assets that grab attention and help our pages rank on search engines. Much like design itself, content is an important element of our user’s experience. Quality web copy and resources will give them the information they need to make their purchasing decisions, while a strategic keyword optimization will place our web content on the path of searchers with high purchase intent.
Stage 5: Development
This stage includes coding and our developer’s job is to make the site function properly. Our developer will create the homepage followed by the other landing pages, based on the website hierarchy. The process also includes combining all the previously designed elements and building an actual website. The front-end development of the website will be a nominal task. The back-end development will consume more time and will be built carefully and methodically. Also, the code of the platform will be available under an open-source license.
Stage 6: Testing
Testing is one of the most significant phases. At this point, our developers will check the functionality of all the elements on our website. The aim is to detect any issues, such as broken links and compatibility with different devices to ensure everything works properly. They will use validators to check the code making sure it follows the current standards, test the site’s speed as well as test for mobile responsiveness. Once they finish the manual and automated testing, our website will be ready to go into a live server and launch.
Stage 7: Maintenance
The last - and the never-ending - phase of the website development timeline is maintenance. As our project grows, we will need to increase the number of pages and add more functionalities and features. We will need to carry out certain tasks on a regular basis, including:
· Editing existing content
· Adding blog posts
· Fixing bugs and issues
· Dosing site backups
· Installing plugins
Since digital and web design trends constantly change, we will also need to keep our site up-to-date both UX and SEO-wise.
Being part of the Cardano community, we will develop the minting feature as open source to help the development of other projects/platforms from this challenge. We are also very open to link and bridge our platform with other projects from the community to help each other develop, like we are planning to do with PanDAO.
Developing our new low fee NFT minting feature linked to Arweave which will secure both artists and buyers will significantly expand Cardano’s use-case. Music being present in every country in the world, our platform containing the NFT minting feature will create utility for otherwise locked Cardano and consequently reduce its price volatility.
More than just targeting people already using crypto, the Rythmeet project seeks to bring thousands of people from outside the crypto bubble into the Cardano community. We believe that this number will increase exponentially in the next few years and has no real limit since music is present everywhere.
Bringing musicians on our platform will allow them to monetize their creations and to become independent and free of any contracts with big corporations. We believe that we will allow musicians to focus more on their music and help them increase their incomes and so their quality of life.
For web hosting, we plan to start with one server with a high quality-price ratio for the first months of the Rythmeet launch. Then, upgrade the specification and the number of the servers along with the increase in the number of users.
For data storage related to original music files, we plan to use Arweave.
People coming on our platform might not be comfortable using cryptocurrencies, even with lower fees. We could propose some rewards for people using Cardano for the first time. Once they use it for the first time, they will understand how easy it is and we are confident they will continue to use it after.
Artists may be scared to move from a corporation label to their own label using our platform. Once our platform is launched, we will focus on bringing artists onto it explaining to them the advantages of using our platform versus signing contracts with big labels. We already know artists who are interested in our project. We will also develop our marketing since Shinetech has marketing specialists ready to work with us. At this stage, the fastest we bring artists into the Cardano community, the more chances we have to succeed.
Shinetech is a Chinese company. What if the Chinese government forbids development of cryptocurrency platforms? Luckily, Shinetech is also based in other countries like the US, Australia or Canada and the Rythmeet platform will be registered in France, so it won't be a problem for us.
The most obvious risk regarding art platforms in general, and so NFTs, concerns unauthorized parties who would mint an NFT using a digital audio track they do not own copyrights. We plan to develop smart contracts to minimize this risk.