Hello to all my musical persons!! OK — I’m not the best at keeping things simple and I hope I can make this article tell you everything you need to know (well it’s everything I know) about an NFT powered music player and download service I’m building on the Zilliqa Blockchain.
After waiting and waiting for services to arrive here I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and needed to try to build my own solution to the NFT music problem.
Background
I’m not a genius. I’m not a professional developer. I’m just a guy trying his best to solve a problem.. and I hope, with the help of the wider #MusicNFT community and some great friends from #ZilFam, we can build something awesome together.
After being a part of the Zilliqa community for 18 months I can safely say that this community is one of the very best I’ve seen in crypto. $ZIL is still a relatively small blockchain which is capable of truly mighty things. If you care to look under the hood, the tech is insane!
I’ve been through good times and bad times with NFT communities and marketplaces on Zilliqa and I’ve come to learn that, as well as needing #MusicNFTs here, we need stability and true permanency. Marketplaces all across crypto have rug-pulled and in some cases, NFTs disappear with them. I want to change that.
Mission Statement
To create a simple, accessible, sustainable and most importantly permanent place to download and enjoy music NFTs on Zilliqa.
Concept
Out of the gate:
*This isn’t a fully-fledged NFT platform.
*This isn’t an NFT Marketplace
*This isn’t a music player that runs from the media (sound file) you mint to the blockchain. Repeat: This player does NOT use media minted to the blockchain.
*We will be using established NFT services like Cathulhu to mint, manage and sell tokens.
HeyGoNFT is a service that sits alongside your tokens, so your tokens can contain any media you want them to. Just like on other marketplaces you are free to mint all kinds token media to list for sale. Album art, video, individual 1/1 artworks, collectibles, audio only.. You can go crazy!
Once we have deployed the contract and minted some tokens — that’s where the magic happens.
Whoever owns ANY token on your NFT contract can now gain access to the online music player and unlock a packaged download (customizable).
A new Music Player (and download package) is created for every contract. So, that means if you would like to release individual Single tracks as NFTs we will need to deploy multiple contracts… but don’t panic!
For all my friends coming from Ethereum, Polygon or Solana where marketplaces have their own mass NFT contracts and where transaction fees might be intimidating (or even soul-destroying) - trust me, Zilliqa is extremely versatile and transactions cost under $0.05 most of the time.
Starting out
I’m working closely with CT Twenty to get a brave band of artists together to make a splash when we launch. I’m excited about getting started but, as I mentioned, I’m not an experienced developer (also a dad and full-time office monkey) so I need all the help I can get — I’m working with Jordan from Pelenia DAO on a release and may have some help with developing but there’s still some research to be done.
The Tech
Storage
HeyGoNFT will be using Arweave to store music player code and serve the data to people online. Arweave is an amazing network of people who will store data permanently, so no rug-pulls, no disappearing players, just endless music for all your fans and followers. (I can’t guarantee that because forever is a long time but that’s the mission).
Arweave charges an upfront fee to store data so after I build the pages I’ll be adding media to the public chain there (masked by cryptographic hash — it’s not searchable). Once the data is on the perma-web I’ll send artists an Arweave link that will never expire.
URLs and Web Service
Although artists get the Arweave link it’s not the greatest :/ it kinda looks like this:
https://ab2ps6qno7itmetioaqx3fujsle4eqirnakiwxprhkjooloyxt2q.arweave.net/AHT5eg130TYSaHAhfZaJksnCQRFoFItd8TqS5y3YvPU
So I’ll be running a parallel web service using ‘heygo.me’. That way URLs will look like this:
https://cttwenty.heygo.me
Much nicer — I think you’ll agree, though I can only guarantee these links while I’m alive LOL. We are trying to create ‘forever NFTs’ after all
Note: I’m also waiting to find out more about ArNS (URL nameservice on Arweave by ar.io and ArDrive)
Zilpay Wallet
Zilpay Wallet is the best (and pretty much only) fully functioning Web3 wallet on Zilliqa with mobile app/support across Android and iOS.
HeyGoNFTs will be using the Zilpay API to connect to the blockchain in order to verify token ownership and unlock the music player and download service.
Playback and Accessibility
The code used in the music player is compatible with all modern web browsers on Desktop. It has also been tested thoroughly on Android and iOS devices. Both mobile operating systems allow the Zilpay Wallet app browser to play music in the background, it will also repeat and move on to the next track in the playlist, making HeyGoNFT a fully portable access point for entertainment.
What’s the deal?
We’re currently in testing and will need to make allowances as we get started and figure out a final build strategy. There’s work going on behind the scenes at the moment to try to make sure we can scale the project and still protect these NFTs for the long-term. Working out methods of minting and token sales/management that will ensure a great outcome for artists and keep the project sustainable.
These ideas are NOT set in stone and we’d appreciate your feedback and to get some discussion going around this.
Deal number one (Royalties)
- HeyGoNFT will deploy the NFT contract and build the player with no upfront cost to the artist.
- Either HeyGoNFT or Artist can mint their Tokens to the contract using Cathulhu. Token creation is independent of the Music Player.
- The artist will list the Tokens for sale on the Marketplace.
- HeyGoNFT will charge a 5% royalty on the initial token sale via the contract.
- Once the initial token sale is complete HeyGoNFT will transition the NFT contract to direct royalties to the artist on the secondary market (at a custom percentage rate), in perpetuity.
Deal number two (one-off builds)
- Artists are free to deploy their own NFT contract and mint their own tokens on Cathulhu.
- HeyGoNFT will charge a one-time fee to build, deploy and maintain the player.
What will I get?
Online Music Player + download service
A fully hosted Music Player
Hosted Download Service
Friendly URL “example.heygo.me”
Player features:
Audio player with controls
Background color-coordinated with Cover Art
Artist page with links to other services, website etc. (a la Linktree / Songwhip)
NFT info section with writing / performing / production credits, lyrics, NFT distribution terms, license information.
Download Package
Anything you can fit inside a .zip file — but please don’t make it 20Gigabytes and bankrupt me
You will receive, via email:
Arweave permanent storage link
Friendly URL
Bit.ly redirect URL for backup ‘friendly name’ solution
That’s a wrap for now…
I know for any other #ZilFam, like me, who have been waiting so long for MusicNFTs it might be painful to wait — but our main priority is sustainability and permanence so I want to really try to get things right before we launch and things get crazy.
I hope this has been helpful and you like what you’ve read so far.. This is a simple concept but it may take time to refine.. The thing with Web3 is we buidl it ourselves :)
Please come and say ‘Hi’ on Twitter, Discord or Telegram — we can talk about music and I can answer any questions you might have.
