In 2021, Kings of Leon made history as the first band to release their new album as an NFT. It wasn’t long before music NFTs started to gain traction among other artists.
NFTs aren’t just comprised of digital art, collectibles, and other 3D assets—they also encompass music. The rapid adoption of music NFTs by creators is slowly changing the way we view the music industry. Thanks to music NFTs, creators can have full control and ownership over their creations. They can also monetize their works without the need for middlemen.
One of the best things about music NFTs is how much closer it brings musicians and their fans together. Through music NFTs, fans can directly support and contribute to the growth of their favorite artists, while artists themselves can build stronger connections with their supporters and continue to earn royalties through secondary sales of their works.
Top 25 Music NFT Marketplaces to Find and Sell Music NFTs:
- 1. OpenSea
- 2. SuperRare
- 3. Nifty Gateway
- 4. MintableÂ
- 5. Async Music
- 6. Enjin Marketplace
- 7. RaribleÂ
- 8. Blockparty
- 9. Mintbase
- 10. Zora
- 11. Serenade
- 12. One Of
- 13. PlayTreks
- 14. Catalog
- 15. NFT Showroom
- 16. Sound.xyz
- 17. Mint Songs
- 18. TuneGONFT
- 19. Royal Â
- 20. RCRDSHP
- 21. AirNFTs
- 22. Audius
- 23. The Musician Marketplace
- 24. MakersPlace
- 25. Binance NFT
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Are Music NFTs?
Music NFTs are like your usual NFTs or non-fungible tokens, except that they’re musical pieces with encrypted properties. More specifically, music NFTs are certificates of ownership. These music NFTs can take on the form of albums, singles, digital artwork for albums, concert or gig tickets, video clips of musical performances, mixes, and audio samples. These pieces leverage blockchain technology to provide proof of ownership over a creative work and make it difficult for others to forge them.
Similar to how other NFTs work, music NFTs allow musicians to determine what they’re going to sell. The artist will then select the platform on which they’re going to mint and sell their NFTs with other details like its selling price. Like any other musical work, they can then promote their music NFT drop through their preferred social media platforms.
Often, collectors who purchase music NFTs don’t purchase the actual rights to the creative work. What they’re basically buying, aside from bragging rights and early support, is the original audio file of the piece, as well as the opportunity to support their favorite artists’ growth. As a music NFT owner, you can store your collection in your preferred crypto wallet and, later on, you can decide whether or not you want to sell it. If you decide to sell it, the original artist can still get a cut of the sales.
How Do Music NFTs Benefit Creators?
Music NFTs are a welcome alternative to streaming services, which often generate a small profit for artists, particularly emerging artists. To make a thousand dollars on Spotify, an artist will need to have over 200,000 streams.
Aside from giving them control and ownership of their works, music NFTs give artists more room for creativity. As a musician, you can combine different digital elements to create a truly unique music NFT. Some have even blended animation with their music to create interactive pieces. Artists also have greater control over their profits because NFTs, in essence, eliminate middlemen like music labels and lawyers.
Music NFTs also help artists add value to their work by giving fans the opportunity to access unlockable content, which can be anything like album artwork, bonus tracks, or behind-the-scenes videos. Moreover, music NFTs give artists a new channel for audience engagement. With music NFTs, you can award perks or benefits to the holders of your NFTs.
Top 25 Music NFT Marketplaces
Don’t know where to start looking for music NFTs or where’s the best place to showcase your creative work? This list includes general NFT marketplaces as well as specialized music NFT marketplaces.
1. OpenSea
An immensely popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea lets creators and collectors build, sell, and find digital goods such as art, collectibles, domain names, and music. Aside from bringing independent musicians to the forefront, OpenSea’s music NFT collection also includes big names like The Weeknd, Snoop Dogg, and Imogen Heap. Here, you can find collaborations featuring artists like Calvin Harris and The White Stripes and an array of genres including generative lo-fi music and 8-bit musical loops.
The platform lets you create your own music NFT with its minting tool. You can program your NFTs in such a way that you can earn royalties each time it’s sold. OpenSea supports NFTs on the following blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, Klatyn, and Solana. Additionally, it supports ERC-721 tokens for auctions.
2. SuperRare
SuperRare is another popular NFT marketplace that’s also a great place to find and sell music NFTs, aside from one-of-a-kind, single-edition digital art. You’ll find plenty of music-based NFTs such as The Winner Is… a musical work by artist @balkanbump, which was released as an interactive NFT that combines music and animation.
Unlike most NFT marketplaces, you need to receive an invite from SuperRare for you to be able to publish your work on the platform. Because it’s still in early access mode, only a handful of artists are onboarded monthly. If you haven’t been invited for the current round, you can fill out this form for future consideration.
Once you start minting and selling on SuperRare, you can receive an 85% commission for primary sales and a 10% commission for secondary sales.
3. Nifty Gateway
More than being an NFT marketplace, Nifty Gateway is a custodial platform that’s backed by Gemini’s custody technology, which stores assets in a secure wallet. Nifty’s custodial nature means there are no gas fees for transactions like purchasing NFTs using a card or account balance, minting NFTs, and withdrawing them to external wallets.
On Nifty, you can find an assortment of NFTs including digital artworks and music-based NFTs, such as Numinous: The Descent collection, which features artworks by Robbie Trevino and music by deadmau5. Another notable collection is the BBX Silver Edition by Lyle Owerko that’s topped off with music by Stargate.
Other big-name artists and musicians on Nifty’s roster include Grimes, Steve Aoki, Pak, Beeple, and Snoop Dogg.
4. Mintable
Mintable lets creators mint their digital works on the blockchain for free. You can also trade a variety of digital assets including artwork, collectibles, in-game items, fonts, videos and music. If you’re selling music NFTs on Mintable, you need to make sure that it’s collectible, of high quality, rare, and, of course, downloadable. Furthermore, it helps if you include a good description that helps explain why your music NFT is valuable or worth collecting.
5. Async Music
An offshoot of Async Art, Async Music is a music-focused NFT marketplace. What makes the platform different from other general or music-based NFT marketplaces is its unique approach to music NFTs. Each master track that’s uploaded to Async Music has multiple “variants” or versions, so other artists can mint unique music NFTs. For example, a music track can be broken down into three separate layers, called “stems”, which are separate, ownable NFTs. If you own a stem, you can select the particular variant that will remain active on the master track.
The platform also has the Async Player, which shows all the information about a master track you’re checking out, including all its stems, current settings, and the stem owners. Async Music also introduced the Recordings feature, which lets artists create limited edition recordings of their selected master track.
6. Enjin Marketplace
A huge NFT marketplace, Enjin Marketplace has over 1 billion blockchain assets for collectors and enthusiasts to discover. It’s home to a variety of NFTs, including rare digital art, digital fashion, gaming items, and branded crypto-collectibles.
Its music NFT arm, Enjin for Music, lets creators tokenize their tracks to create music NFTs for distribution and monetization. Aside from the opportunity to build your fan base, Enjin lets you keep 100% of each sale and the ability to monetize your secondary sales. The platform also lets you tokenize pretty much everything music-related, from limited edition bonus tracks and album art to concert tickets.
7. Rarible
Looking for an alternative to OpenSea? Rarible is a good place to start. It’s open to everyone and gives you the chance to become a part of a “community-centric NFT marketplace.”
Rarible features an extensive array of music NFTs and collections featuring tokens like ERC-721, Tezos-MT, ERC-1155, and Tezos-NFT. It also supports multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Flow, Polygon, and Tezos, which is good news if you’re also a collector since this means you can access a large database of music NFTs.
8. Blockparty
Blockparty has a host of Web3 tools for creators of all kinds to mint one-of-a-kind, connected NFTs. If you’re a musician, you’ll find that Blockparty is designed with creators in mind; you won’t have to worry about gas fees and you can release fully customizable NFT drops. Moreover, aside from minting on Blockparty, you have the option to mint on other blockchains, particularly Ethereum and Flow.
For collectors, Blockparty makes it easy for you to acquire or bid on NFTs. You can pay with fiat currency or ETH via MetaMask. You’ll also have the opportunity to support your favorite artists and check out exclusive content directly from them.
The platform’s mission is to help creators build stronger connections with their fans through incentives like giveaways and rewards. Fans can also support artists directly through resale royalties.
9. Mintbase
For musicians and developers who want to create their own smart contracts, Mintbase is a great option for you, especially if you’re looking for a scalable and eco-friendly infrastructure for your NFTs. It’s also an ideal marketplace for artists who want to tokenize their concert or cinema tickets.
To start creating, visit the Mintbase website and click the “Create” button on the navigation bar. From there, you’ll need to choose the store you want to mint from. For creators who don’t have a store yet, you’ll need to deploy your store first, which costs 6.5 NEAR (for storage costs).
Once done, click on the “Mint” button to access the platform’s minting flow. For every item sold, Mintbase collects a 2% fee.
10. Zora
Zora calls itself a “universal media registry protocol” that gives creators the freedom to publish their digital works, monetize their creations, and let other creators build and share their creations. It offers an alternative approach to tokens and NFTs by creating one original token that’s accessible to everyone regardless of who its owner is. Then, this original token can be resold again and collectors who like your work can purchase it directly from you and then from other users. With each reselling, the original creator gets a cut of the sale.
11. Serenade
Headquartered in Australia, Serenade focuses on bringing eco-friendly NFTs to collectors around the world. This music-focused NFT marketplace lets artists create eco-friendly digital collectibles, which, according to the site, is only 1/10th of a tweet’s carbon footprint. Aside from musicians, you’ll also find NFTs from music festivals like the Brit Awards on Serenade. Artists who are currently on Serenade include The Kooks, Ladyhawke, Dead Pony, and Young M.A.
As an artist on Serenade, you can create intimate communities of fans and use technology to give them a novel experience. Plus, you won’t have to worry about paying for gas fees so you can focus on creating your NFTs. Aside from music, you can create other NFTs on Serenade, like bespoke music-related artwork and redemptions (NFTs with physical merch).
The platform is on the Polygon blockchain, which boasts a smaller carbon footprint compared to major blockchain players like Ethereum.
12. One Of
One Of is an NFT marketplace that focuses on sports and lifestyle NFTs along with music NFTs. It has a dedicated marketplace for sports NFTs and music NFTs, where you’ll find drops from artists like Franc Moody, Elujay, and Mack Keane.
It puts creators, particularly emerging artists, first and makes minting more accessible even to creators who are new to the crypto space. For fans, One Of makes it easier for you to acquire your favorite NFTs. Aside from $0 gas fees, you can also use several payment methods including cryptocurrencies and debit or credit card.
13. PlayTreks
This all-in-one music app doubles as an NFT marketplace for the music industry. With PlayTreks, an AI-driven analytics platform, you get unlimited music data, free music distribution, copyright control, radio airplay monitoring, and access to its blockchain NFT marketplace among other features. Moreover, artists on PlayTreks can get actionable insights from sources like social media and streaming platforms so you can make better, more informed decisions to shape your career.
With PlayTreks, artists can also get digital proof of ownership for their creations. The platform’s blockchain-based NFT marketplace lets you mint your music and turn it into an NFT.
14. Catalog
Catalog combines everything that musicians and fans love. It’s a digital record shop that also houses a thriving music community. Plus, it doubles as a streaming platform. Unlike other NFT marketplaces, Catalog only hosts one-of-one digital records. However, it’s worth noting that artists on Catalog can receive 100% of initial sales and commissions from resales. Also, Catalog allows artists to release their music on other platforms.
15. NFT Showroom
This digital art marketplace is built on the Hive blockchain, a globally accessible and feeless blockchain. It showcases limited edition NFTs, including music-related NFTs. While users can purchase, sell, and trade NFTs on the platform, creators can’t mint on the NFT Showroom yet. What’s great about this platform is it allows artists to open their works for commercial uses.
16. Sound.xyz
Sound.xyz is a music-focused NFT marketplace that doubles as a minting and streaming platform. It lets fans support their favorite artists directly, while artists can launch a listening party for the new tracks they’re releasing. Artists are given the opportunity to release their new music as NFTs, with each edition having a unique number that then allows listeners to showcase their support early on.
Fans can also benefit from listening parties because these new tracks are considered as early editions, giving them more value compared to later editions. What sets it apart from other platforms is that Sound.xyz lets fans leave comments on the songs they’re supporting. It’s also the first platform to feature artist-owned contracts, allowing creators to retain ownership and provenance over their works.
Aside from individual artists or bands, other artists can also collaborate on releasing their music NFTs on Sound.xyz.
17. Mint Songs
Mint Songs is a dedicated music NFT platform that offers true digital asset ownership, which means every song you collect on the platform is owned by you. Aside from ownership perks, the platform also helps fans support the artists they love directly. Not ready to start collecting yet? No worries. You can also listen to Mint Songs’ extensive music collection for free.
It also has its own NFT minter so artists can easily create and market their music NFTs on the same platform. Plus, the $0 minting fee makes creating music NFTs more accessible for artists. If you’re conscious about the impact of minting NFTs, Mint Songs is built on the eco-friendly Polygon blockchain. Mint Songs will be working with Aerial.is to offset the carbon emissions generated from minting NFTs.
18. TuneGONFT
TuneGONFT is built on the energy-efficient Flow blockchain. While it’s currently invitation-only, you can request for an invitation on the TuneGONFT website. The platform has a patented TuneGO Vault for content and creative rights security, and it doesn’t require gas fees for minting.
More than being an NFT marketplace, TuneGO also has its business arm, which takes care of all the behind-the-scenes components of making, distributing, and promoting your music. It simplifies content and music rights management and empowers artists by helping them securely organize their metadata so they don’t miss out on royalties. On the same app, you can distribute your music to a number of music stores and streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Tidal. It’s a great option for musicians, even if you aren’t into making music NFTs just yet.
19. Royal
Putting a different spin on ownership, Royal is a marketplace that caters solely to music NFTs. Royal was founded in 2021 3LAU and JD Ross. With their team, they handpick each artist and work showcased on the platform.
As an artist on Royal, you still retain the ownership and control of your music. What makes Royal different from other NFT marketplaces is it lets artists share the ownership of their works with their fans and collectors. This means that if you’re a collector on Royal, you get a portion of the sale.
Artists get to choose the percentage of the song’s royalties that they’re putting up for sale. They can further customize this experience by including incentives like bonus tracks and digital art.
20. RCRDSHP
Discover certified digital NFTs on RCRDSHP, a platform that seeks to disrupt current industry frameworks and allow fans to directly connect with their supporters, who can purchase their favorite musician’s works.
With each released collectible, supporters can get a nifty “pack”, which is akin to mystery boxes. Packs can contain playable music, label collectibles, video content, and more. Fans can also resell their collectibles on the RCRDSHP platform, and because RCRDSHP implements smart contracts, creators can earn royalties from the sale.
21. AirNFTs
Because it’s built on BSC, Fantom, and Polygon blockchains, AirNFTs offers a faster, more affordable way to mint and trade music NFTs. The platform currently has over 260,000 minted NFTs, with more than $16 million in trading volume. It features a variety of NFTs, including Polygon and Fantom NFTs, as well as collectibles, video NFTs, influencer NFTs, and music NFTs.
Its user-friendliness makes it accessible to both collectors and creators. With one click, artists can create their NFTs. This makes AirNFTs a good place to start especially for content creators who are new to the NFT space. It’s also open to everyone so you won’t have to worry about signing up for invitations.
22. Audius
Audius isn’t just a music NFT marketplace; it’s also a music streaming and sharing platform. With Audius, artists can engage their fans, share works in progress, and monetize their music NFTs via Audius’ AUDIO token. Some of the artists on the platform include deadmau5, 3LAU, and The Stafford Brothers.
Additionally, users can now connect their music NFTs on Solana and Ethereum to their Audius profile, which also supports NFT displays.
23. The Musician Marketplace
While it’s more of an on-demand music creation platform and not exclusively a music NFT marketplace, The Musician Marketplace does have a dedicated music NFT marketplace where works are tokenized on its ERC-721 blockchain. It doesn’t charge commissions for every sale, but creators are required to pay gas fees and a fixed subscription fee.
24. MakersPlace
MakersPlace is a platform that showcases rare and authentic digital creations from some of the world’s eminent artists. Aside from digital art, you can also find music NFTs on MakersPlace. Some available music tracks include sample and beat packs.
25. Binance NFT
Most of us know Binance as one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, but its NFT marketplace is a treasure trove of premium and exclusive NFTs. The platform lets you mint, sell, and purchase a variety of NFTs, including music NFTs, by global creators. It also offers mystery boxes, which give you the opportunity to snag rare NFTs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sell my music as an NFT?
Yes, you can mint and sell your original work as an NFT. The important thing to remember is that you should always use your own music and not some other artist’s to avoid copyright issues. If you want to be extra sure that you’re on the right path, you may want to consult with a lawyer.
What are some of the best music NFT marketplaces?
Although there are plenty of general marketplaces, like OpenSea, Rarible, and Binance NFT, there are also a lot of NFT marketplaces dedicated to music NFTs. These include Mint Songs, Sound.xyz, and Royal. Do note that some of the platforms on our list are invitation-only, but you can always sign up or register now for future consideration.
How can I sell my music NFT?
Before you can sell your work as an NFT, you first need to mint it. You can create music files for minting from your tracks, recordings, music videos, and even live performances. Additionally, you can turn non-audio works into music-related NFTs like concert tickets. You’ll then have to look for a platform that suits your needs. Consider its gas fees, commission fees, and ease of use. You might also want to look at a platform’s eco-friendliness, which is determined by what blockchain it’s on.