The state of music DAOs - Water & Music

Abstract

More than 30 online music and creator communities now self-identify as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Over the last two months, we interviewed more than 15 leaders from a wide range of music DAOs to gain perspective on possibilities for their respective organizations in this emerging framework, using Web3 tools and strategies unavailable to the traditional music industry. Ultimately, we found the leaders we spoke with viewed the concept of a DAO not as technical infrastructure, but rather as an abstract social signal to mobilize online communities. Their approach and perspective differed — sometimes vastly — from the token-focused or on-chain-dependent ethos common to many protocol-centric DAOs that came before them.