Hey @Mantis,
First of all, you ARE a big nerd!
Second, love the etymology of the label’s name - bluetail, underground, etc – super fun, intriguing, layered.
Third and finally, 100% behind the vision and what you’ve shared thus far, look forward to seeing the game plan, the ask, and the expected outcomes.
Great idea, great energy, happy to help in whatever way I can.
Peace – SSP✌🏽
Thanks! I will need everyone’s help in the draft phase when the tokenomics and other details drop.
The more I consider the premise of Bluetail, the more intrigued I am. Bluetail leverages two distinct advantages vis a vis traditional music. First is simply serving an ignored group of artists. Second, the platform itself circumvents the business mechanics of the traditional music industry and even web2 music. Such an approach encapsulates web3: don’t engage with the traditional competition, just go around them. To take its web3 nature even further, Bluetail extends the composability of defi to arts and entertainment. Another way to think about it is that it takes the “money Lego” idea well beyond financial protocols, turning them into “media Legos.”
Benefits or artists: Get better, more flexible payout up front, especially if the artist signs to his own label. Gain exposure to royalty sources unavailable otherwise.
Benefits for listeners: Exposure to broad array of works, gamified engagement
My enthusiasm is not without some healthy concern though.
How the plaform generates revenue: My impression is that it involves seed funding initially, then receive royalties from licensing deposited material. Are there other sources of platform revenue? Is it the royalties alone that will allow the platform to become self-sustaining? Traditional platforms obtain revenue through ads, subscriptions, and selling user data. I would assume Bluetail would prefer to avoid those? Are funds deposited into Bluetail to be rehypothecated to boost yield? For example, would any $APE holdings be deployed into defi until they are needed for payouts?
More funding questions: Is the seed funding used in part to drive the initial engagement, similar to yield farming? Are there metrics to determine when the platform becomes self-sustaining, without the need for continued injection of capital to entice either artists or listeners?
Powered by Apecoin: Would all transactions be done in $APE? Ie, are the artists paid in $APE if they cash out initially, are the loans are denominated in $APE, and are license royalties paid in $APE? Will the token-gating be such that only holders of $APE can deposit as artists or listen to music? What other benefits would holding $APE entail?
Quality control: Will there be curating? Example, Artblocks has the AB Curated portion of that NFT platform. On the other hand, will it be more of a free-for-all similar to fx(hash) on tezos, where an artist can post pretty much anything nonmalicious? As an aside, I am quite fond of both platforms, and both are successful. Just curious.
Mechanics: Will the platform be on Ethereum mainnnet or L2 or alt L1? Gas fees could be a concern at some point.
Comments:
The biggest points of failure I see are social risk and revenue bleed. Social risk: failure to launch/lack of engagement from either artists or listeners. Revenue bleed: funds being drained by artists cashing out on deposited NFTs that do not generate further revenue, with Bluetail being stuck holding a pile of worthless NFTs (sounds like my own stash, come to think of it).
Overall, this idea has serious potential. Specifically, the creative way of combining aspects of media platforms and defi platforms as media Legos could not impress me more. Let’s see where this goes.
This seems like a really cool idea. Normally, I always like to see a full draft including the asking price in these ideas. I do know you’re qualified professionally and have the connections to see this through and make it a success. @Galleon presents some really good questions, and then my question would be: Can you tell us more about the benefits this brings to our own ecosystem & ApeDAO?
Cool idea! I would recommend you chat with Kingship https://twitter.com/therealkingship, and Ape Rave Club https://twitter.com/aperaveclub to get to know the challenges they encounter in the music field; they would provide insights on this topic to help you better draft the proposal.
Hello everyone,
We’re very focused on reaching the estimated dates that we proposed in AIP-91 but we’re very excited to be able to help and collaborate with other projects within the community.
A few days ago, @Mantis wrote us commenting on his project and offered to us licensing/forking our code, but that doesn’t fit into our vision of the project and we believe that it doesn’t benefit the Foundation/Community, but we have in mind in the medium term to be able to enable some API or integrations with third parties. Mantis told us about this idea that it would not be necessary since it has its own development team and asked us as advisors, but this raises my doubts since it would not know how our team could serve as an advisor. It would be great if you could specify in more detail how these collaborations with third parties like apetalent or Silo Finance would be.
Happy to see so much activity lately on the DAO forum 
@Galleon thanks for the insightful questions! I wasn’t going to get into these details because I thought there would be more discussion about the vision. But seems like people are vision aligned, so let’s get into the woodwork!
Another way to think about it is that it takes the “money Lego” idea well beyond financial protocols, turning them into “media Legos.”
Absolutely. I love that Bluetail has the ability to build upon multiple Ape protocols — ERC721J, Silo Finance, ThriveCoin, ApeTalent, and $APE staking — adding utility to all of them and creating a direct line from that tech to normie web2 users through media.
Benefits or artists: Get better, more flexible payout up front, especially if the artist signs to his own label. Gain exposure to royalty sources unavailable otherwise.
Benefits for listeners: Exposure to broad array of works, gamified engagement
Yep! I’m appreciate you went through the deck and took the time to get it. Dude, thank you for really taking the time out of your day to understand my ideas!
My enthusiasm is not without some healthy concern though.
How the plaform generates revenue:
Seed funding: My plan is one lump sum initially, which only happens once, equal to one year’s projected $APE staking revenue. So Horizen finally drops and we get hard numbers — let’s say $APE staking brings 30% APR. If Apecoin decides to put $1M in $APE to stake for Bluetail, then we actually allocate $1.3million — $1M in staking and $300K as the initial Bluetail rewards pool. It will get paid back within a year.
So the sustainable revenue actually comes from staking. Max LTV limits downside. But make no mistake — we are trading $APE for IP. The big gains come from getting IP that generates royalties. The purpose of the base platform is to sustain long enough to grow its outreach to attract quality artists and users.
This strategy goes to a fundamental belief I have concerning the DAO’s health: The DAO investing directly into individual IPs for music, gaming, fashion, or any “spec industry” is 100% a losing proposition. [Let’s say the DAO invested in “tier A teams” Illuvium, Aurory, Rumble Kong League, Star Atlas, etc. during the Axie meta. Where would that investment be now?] By funding through yield instead of straight up $APE, you give the DAO what it needs to succeed in spec industries — a steady budget to build a platform that attracts IP.
Think the Something Awful Forums and Slenderman. The Something Awful website attracted tons of lore, and finally one came that the community decided organically was amazing. Slenderman was not a function of IP guesswork and betting on the awesome-team-with-all-the-credentials. No! Create a sustainable platform and let the community decide where the big investment goes.
So where’s the upside? A sustainable Bluetail will attract its Slenderman! Then more investment can come from the DAO based on HARD ENGAGEMENT STATS, not “I trust the team.”
…then receive royalties from licensing deposited material. Are there other sources of platform revenue? Is it the royalties alone that will allow the platform to become self-sustaining? Traditional platforms obtain revenue through ads, subscriptions, and selling user data.
Sustainability comes from funding through yield and maxing out LTV to ensure enough additional principal to the staking pool year over year to outpace diminishing APR on staking. (mouthful) Normie record companies can’t do this — there’s no 30% staking in web2. Bluetail uses crypto’s volatility to its advantage.
Ads and subscriptions could be additional income sources as the platform scales. On the surface, I’m against selling user data. Not an expert in this field, so if there’s a less creepy way to do business in this arena, I’m all ears.
More funding questions: Is the seed funding used in part to drive the initial engagement, similar to yield farming?
I’d lobby for a marketing budget separate from the rewards pool, but we’re definitely not paying Snoop Dogg and Eminem $X00,000 to do one song to “drive engagement” and pretending that’s a marketing campaign. We’re doing it the right way, going to music conferences, hitting the unis where music movements are born, doing the Twitter/Instagram DMs, finding those hidden artists on the cusp of success to partner with. Embedding the DAO into the culture. And we’ll need Ape music pros and wannabe pros to make this happen. The difference after Bluetail is they’ll have a platform to rally around.
Are there metrics to determine when the platform becomes self-sustaining, without the need for continued injection of capital to entice either artists or listeners?
The plan is that after the initial lump sum funding, there is no need for continued injection. Full tokenomics to come in Draft stage, but by my calculations, Bluetail could experience 100% loan default and a 5% drop year over year in yield APR and sustain funding. Keep in mind this is a catastrophic worst case scenario where we attract nothing but complete tools.
Powered by Apecoin: Would all transactions be done in $APE? Ie, are the artists paid in $APE if they cash out initially, are the loans are denominated in $APE, and are license royalties paid in $APE? Will the token-gating be such that only holders of $APE can deposit as artists or listen to music? What other benefits would holding $APE entail?
The plan is an $APE base, including loans, although I’m debating whether to offer a choice of loans in $APE and stablecoin. Loaning in only $APE drastically reduces risk of forced liquidations, so I’m leaning that way.
License royalties paid in $APE for web3 deals if opposite party accepts. Otherwise, we’re flexible. Still researching web2 deals — how to sync with legacy PROs, etc. Big point here: If it turns out Bluetail can’t sync with PROs, it doesn’t have to. The platform is not exclusive, and it should stick to what it does best.
Benefits for holding $APE: Artists get better placement, higher LTV, possibly better terms on license deals. Holders get weighted voting, possibly loan interest rate bonuses if they invest in an artist. Top artists/investors holding $APE and participating in Bluetail get prizes including merch or travel to awesome music festivals. Open to suggestions here!
I would open listening to everyone, web2, web3. No need to gate that.
Quality control: Will there be curating? Example, Artblocks has the AB Curated portion of that NFT platform. On the other hand, will it be more of a free-for-all similar to fx(hash) on tezos, where an artist can post pretty much anything nonmalicious? As an aside, I am quite fond of both platforms, and both are successful. Just curious.
I lean towards fx(hash) with perhaps a curated premium section for top performers or Yuga ecosystem holders.
But I think the direction of the marketing serves as curator as well. We make the platform known to small labels and artists on the verge, who bring their audiences with them. Tezos in general appeals to a pretty highbrow hippie crowd, so fx(hash) naturally gets high quality stuff. We do the same.
Mechanics: Will the platform be on Ethereum mainnnet or L2 or alt L1? Gas fees could be a concern at some point.
I much prefer ETH L1. If gas ever becomes an issue, the DAO can become a hero by offering to refund the gas fees for Bluetail Music Competition winners, a contest Bluetail will throw as marketing outreach 
.
The biggest points of failure I see are social risk and revenue bleed.
Social risk: Yep. There’s a lot of tumbleweed platforms out there, especially in music. Here’s how we make sure it doesn’t happen. First: The platform is made to aggregate a lot of Ape music tech (some tumbleweeds 
). I want to incentivize these builders to get involved as marketers and bring their audiences.
The biggest difference is that I understand from working with Flow and Cxmmunity that culture is going to drive web3 adoption in the mainstream, not tech alone. So the DAO must use Bluetail to imbue itself into the culture. The advantage of Bluetail is that it brings a lot of great tech to web2 that would otherwise have less direct and immediate value. Web3 music pros can’t ERC721J to artists. But they can explain “earn your next advance through likes and shares.”
Bottom line though: Motivated people have got to use Bluetail to get Apecoin involved in the IRL music industry. I’ll be the first. Attending conferences. Pitching syncs.
Revenue bleed: funds being drained by artists cashing out on deposited NFTs that do not generate further revenue
I plan on implementing engagement protections to keep trash tier artists from gaming collateral from fake likes. That’s the ThriveCoin tech at work.
As far as cashing out on trash work, with those protections in place, the NFT’s value is based on community input. Trash work won’t get any likes, so no collateral is built up.
I plan on implementing an 80% slash on any cashouts and letting people know upfront about it. Engagement is meant to build collateral, not income. But artists that cashout help the DAO, because the slash actually repurposes more $APE than a max LTV default. These are things we can do to protect the platform.
But more than anything, Bluetail is an opportunity for the DAO. No piece of tech can stop people from trying to game the system. I expect that. If the people surrounding it allow garbage to proliferate, then it will. Once the proposal passes and it’s built, it’s up to us to continue using it in the right way.
Overall, this idea has serious potential. Specifically, the creative way of combining aspects of media platforms and defi platforms as media Legos could not impress me more. Let’s see where this goes.
Oh yeah!!
More questions if you have them! This is exactly the feedback I need to shore up loose ends. Thanks again, Galleon!
Wooow. There is so much to digest here. Everything I’m reading is really cool and inspiring. I love this whole concept of: artist streams music and build’s “reputation/collateral,” and can use that to take an advance (loan) from the DAO, and we “borrow” the IP rights to the music for facilitating it. Sooooo cool! 
I just can’t get over the whole advance/loan from the DAO in exchange for music NFTs. You’ve opened a whole new can of worms here. Haha
I love the name, I love the idea, I love the tech, we love the founders, we just need more details. 
There is so much potential here it’s not even funny.
Wow, there’s a lot of food or should I say music for thought here! 
Let me first summarize what I understood from your post. Then if I’ve understood correctly, I’ll have a couple of questions.
You are proposing a decentralized Apecoin Record Label. It will be Underground, edgy, innovative, International both in curation and outreach focusing on and benefitting emerging artists in the music industry. The benefit for DAO is that it can potentially onboard a ?relatively large number? of artists and their communities to crypto/web3 using Apecoin as an entry and introduction point. Some or many of these artists can become very popular in the future so it will be a great asset for Apecoin as a crypto/web3 brand to be behind the rise of tomorrow’s rising stars!
Did I get it right?
First of all, I love your idea and really enjoyed learning more about your own background! So cool! I’m not a music nerd but a nerd so always appreciate nerding out to other fields lol
I also have some comments/questions:
It sounds to me that you are considering existing partnerships and collaborations with the music industry within the apes ecosystem broadly as a competition and perhaps even mutually exclusive to the crowd and community that you envision for Bluetail. While I see and love all the great new things and approaches you bring to the table, I don’t think we need to necessarily demarcate communities so sharply (harshly? Lol). Again, I do get your points about the current practice and how there’s so much room for doing other cool things. But let’s not forget that the mainstream music industry is not a monolith either. There are progressive brands and there are other less revolutionary ones! For example, I’ve never felt more underground and revolutionary as when I was standing in the front line watching SnoopDogg do his thing on stage in the finale of Apefest 2022. I can’t describe it in words but what happened there could not be imagined even a year ago. So basically, I’m all for the new and exciting and think there’s room for everyone here especially for more synergy. 
Would love to know more about the demographics and stats of the international underground music community you refer to. I sometimes find it interesting and helpful to look at Spotify data and then imagine what else we could achieve by tokenzing music streaming platforms. So some numbers would be very interesting here. 
I love your own background and look forward to learning more about your work. You seem to have a lot of experience and the technical know-how to oversee such a project. My only question is about strategy for large-scale onboarding the kind of international talent you speak of. Is that something you will do as well? How?
One last point, there’s some discussion of profitability in your idea. I’m curious to know how you envision Apecoin to basically invest in these emerging artists and emerging markets given the DAO is not a for-profit organiztion. Would Bluetail be then a separate for-profit DAO? I like the idea but not sure if it will be legally straightforward to keep the connection (Apecoin Record Label) and DAO to not have a stake in it!
Overall, love where you’re going with this and can’t wait to see it develop into a full-fledged AIP. Thank you for all the time you put into this and for your contributions on everyone else’s ideas. 
This is brilliant. Also, it’s only possible early in APE staking. As long as the staking rewards aren’t otherwise utilized, this strategy accrues no possible loss. Now that said, there is the opportunity cost/lost yield for the staked APE if the platform falters. Still, to utilize the early staking APY to launch Bluetail will at best have a multiplicative effect, turning yield into yield. At worst, the yield is lost, but not initial investment.
If blockchain technology and crypto have shown anything, it’s the power of community. If Bluetail were to truly be able to direct that energy to elevate latent, but ignored talent, it can only succeed. That’s a big IF, though. From a cold-hearted business standpoint, the strategy spreads risk well. The business (or agriculture) analogy is putting your eggs in as many baskets as possible.
This is the kind of thing APE holders thirst for – a reason to rep their support and get together
Thanks for the detailed answers. There are many, many more details to be resolved in order to bring something this big to fruition. Nonetheless, it is clear that you have painted more than just broad strokes. Impressive.
This looks good. Look forward to seeing it progress through the system.
LOT of good responses here. I’ll take them one by one. Will have all the tech details in the draft stage. But here’s the vision answer for
Can you tell us more about the benefits this brings to our own ecosystem & ApeDAO?
The ever-expanding Ape ecosystem includes many podcasts, music acts and other media with disparate platforms. Awesome, yes, but in need of a hub. The majority of discovery in web2 is done through aggregation sites like Youtube & Tiktok, which then drive engagement to boutique websites. The APE DAO would gain recognition from APE holders and Yuga at large from becoming that aggregation site for Ape content.
Much inspiration taken from ApeClub.ai in terms of the aggregation theme. That site is soooo good…
The DAO can now expand its outreach to conversations and events past the web3 echo chamber. Personally, I believe the DAO’s influence expands tremendously when it begins promoting “XXX Powered by Apecoin” rather than “Apecoin, Apecoin, Apecoin.” Look at Bankless as the example. Their DAO is active because their podcast is relevant to defi and macro — not just Bankless business.
Put another way:
With Bluetail, the DAO now has a legitimate reason to attend Coachella, Ultra, UMF, Glastonbury, Tomorrowland or go on tour with acts it sponsors. Think about how much new participation the DAO gets when it rewards its most active Bluetail music buffs with festival tickets!
Musicians should be paid for their contributions to the metaverse. Bluetail in its final form can function as an Otherside-ready web3 ASCAP, bringing in revenue for the DAO and content creators. Think 10KTF pumping an Ape playlist piped in from Bluetail when someone visits Wagmi-san’s shop, with every artist the user hears getting paid a royalty in $APE immediately to his Metamask, and Bluetail’s treasury earning a percentage as well for every listen.
3a. Empowers the DAO to leverage its current relationships and build new ones with AAA partners.
It’s a longer conversation, but the DAO has relationships with huge entertainment companies (Animoca Brands, etc. through Ape Board; Amazon, Twitch, Riot Games, Microsoft, Dapper Labs, Red Bull through Cxmmunity). Entertainment properties need music. Bluetail is a method to capture and present music to these entities, especially music that might not have a chance to break through in the legacy system.
100% guaranteed: More Apes have an interest in music and potentially partying @ festivals than they have in general governance. Once Apes hear the DAO is creating something directly relevant to fun stuff, we will see a spike in DAO participation.
So far, I see potential direct/indirect integration opportunities for ERC721J, Silo Finance, Ape Talent, BoredJobs, EventsByApecoin, ThriveCoin, ApeTapes, and $APE staking. There’s also room for individual Apes in the music biz to help (e.g. I define Kingship as “Ape-built tech”), not to mention serving as the aggregation platform for media within the Yuga ecosystem.
I’ll put all the workflow in a nice little gf(x) slide during the Draft phase.
Bluetail is focused on nano and micro influencers, emerging markets, and bottom-up empowerment. It’s time to build tech that reflects the promise of crypto to empower a new generation of artists. That’s a stance Apecoin could take to differentiate itself from BAYC Grants and the rest of the Yuga ecosystem, like the Mutant Cartel gained popularity from focusing itself on Mutant initiatives.
Nobody’s doing Bluetail! Even if the “big boys” do it, they’ll just try to onboard the big guys again for the twelfth time, leaving 95% of the world still open for business. Worth repeating: Bluetail is focused on nano and micro influencers, emerging markets, and bottom-up empowerment — the cutting edge!
This project is a perfect excuse to explore the potential between EVM and Flow, and more generally, opportunities that are generally overlooked by Ethereum-facing DAOs and devs. As a result of building on Flow, I’m more aware of the potential there. The audience is significant and distinct from Ethereum, offering potential for DAO expansion. Tezos, Wax: IMHO, worth exploring if just to open the conversation.
Bluetail provides people with an interest in music publishing, licensing, convention outreach, strategy and marketing to contribute directly to the DAO.
ApecoinDAO’s cache as pre-seed investor invites further non-dilutive sponsorships from web2 sponsors in my network and opens the door for web3 funding as well.
More details to come in draft stage deck, inspired by @Harry (that launchpad deck is siiick, I’m stealing the format). Happy to jump on a call if any of this needs explanation!
This was a very detailed explanation. Thank you for taking the time to fully explain! As you’re drafting, please feel to call on me or other regular members to look over early versions. Just like w/ your Kickback Cup proposal, keeping things easy to read and simple to understand is important. I’m also glad that you take examples and look at ways to integrate them.
Already had a call for Kickback Cup stuff, so you’ve heard my general recommendations. For this:
Consider doing a short video (if you do streaming things already). Akhil did an excellent one for his proposal, and something like this could work for you as well. (his youtube video is at bottom of proposal) https://forum.apecoin.com/t/aip-109-a-feature-rich-platform-that-creates-token-gated-profile-pages-for-your-nft-s/
Be prepared to answer the same question: “What is the benefit for the DAO ecosystem” again w/ both administration and special members. Make an elevator pitch version, focus on most important.
You’re really good about calling on members of the community to help influence and guide the vision. I’m really hopeful that you present something that is awesome, and I’ll always cheer you on!
Thanks for the vote of confidence, @Harry. I did try to reach out to those guys. I’ve had luck with many other music Apes, but not Kingship or Rave Club specifically. Do you know them personally? If so, could I get a hand in breaking through?
Sorry to raise doubts, @holocronape. I think our English got a bit mixed, so I’ll clarify here. I’m pricing out and planning in this stage, not offering any positions or asking for private repos . So when I asked you about forking code/licensing, I only meant that your tech is possibly similar to something Bluetail might need, and what would the pricing be for a license/is the code even licensable. I didn’t say I would do it. I’m trying to get cost estimates; that’s it.
Also, the word “advise” means many things to different people. I should not have used it. To me, in this context of planning, “advise” just means “will you answer my email if I have a question about your tech.” Nothing more serious than that.
To answer your question about where tech fits:
ApeTalent — Bluetail is building an artist services job board
Silo Finance — Bluetail needs siloed lending pools
Putting together more detailed explanations about everything right now at 2 am. LFG
No worries, I only know J1mmy! But his team has been very busy closing new partners.
you can try to reach to the following too
These are the music related brands that use BAYC IPs.
Great @Mantis , don’t worry at all.
The feedback I can give you, from the point of view of the Ape community user and not as the creator of AIP-91, is that I think it would be great not to start replicating functionalities between projects, which is why I proposed you that we have in our roadmap to enable an API so that other projects can feed on what we are going to build and be able to collaborate with each other so that each one will focus on its most primary functionality, for example, in the case of Bluetail I think it’s the link between the members of the community and the financing in the music area. It’s like having different pieces, totally independent (they can work in isolation), but by adding certain parts they can communicate and nurture each other.
I know first hand this isn’t easy and more in a decentralized way, approval via DAO… etc but I think we have a great community to achieve it.
We are already talking with other projects to collaborate and be able to nurture each other and totally open so that anyone can sit down and talk with us
So if I don’t step on your toes with what you’re doing, does that mean I have your support for Bluetail?
Congrats on becoming a Regular! Man, forget being a superstar, I want to be regular…
Yessir, the details are coming. Although I’m budgeting for a pro business analyst, I’m running tokenomics scenarios myself right now and things are looking very good. Exciting stuff. And very inspiring that you understand the advance/NFT IP thing. Are you in the biz?
At this point, I’m just really deciding how to pitch it — more tech/music biz speak or sell-the-sizzle. It will be ready by the time this thread closes. If you were me presenting this to the DAO, would you go for the more technical approach or would you sell the sizzle?
Thank you!! You’ll be a regular too soon at this rate! 