SoundCloud acquires decentralized music platform Nina Protocol months after its shutdown

SoundCloud announced Wednesday that it has acquired Nina Protocol, a decentralized euphony level that enabled autarkic artists to merchantability euphony straight to fans portion keeping 100% of their revenue.

The fiscal presumption of the woody weren’t disclosed. It’s besides unclear whether immoderate members of Nina’s squad volition articulation SoundCloud. The institution has not yet responded to a petition for comment.

The woody is SoundCloud’s archetypal acquisition since its 2022 purchase of AI euphony institution Musiio to assistance amended euphony discovery. The woody signals that SoundCloud is continuing to grow beyond euphony hosting into a broader level for autarkic artists.

As portion of the acquisition, SoundCloud volition instrumentality ownership of Nina’s editorial archive and “genre map.” The institution writes successful a blog station that this allows it to sphere Nina’s “rich postulation of euphony journalism, creator features, and taste commentary” and “help aboveground emerging artists, scenes, and euphony to adjacent much listeners.” 

“[Nina Protocol] built an unthinkable level by putting autarkic artists, scenes, and communities first, and our precedence is to grant what they’ve created, portion carrying that ngo forward,” SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton said successful a statement. ”Together, we’ll assistance much autarkic artists physique deeper relationships with fans, unlock caller ways to earn, and entree the tools they request to turn sustainable careers connected their ain terms.”

The acquisition comes conscionable months aft Nina announced it would unopen down its level connected May 28, saying it had been incapable to found a sustainable concern model. 

Founded successful 2021 by autarkic musicians Jack Callahan, Mike Pollard, and Eric Farber, Nina Protocol offered artists a mode to run their ain integer storefronts without relying connected accepted streaming platforms. The work was built connected the Solana blockchain for fast, low-cost transactions and utilized Arweave for imperishable decentralized retention of euphony files and metadata.

For Nina Protocol artists, SoundCloud is offering a migration instrumentality to transportation their enactment to its platform. Additionally, artists volition person a complimentary SoundCloud Artist subscription done the extremity of the year, which includes monetization features and assemblage maturation tools.