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Justin Blau, known by his stage name 3LAU, is a DJ turned crypto-entrepreneur. At the end of February, he auctioned collectible NFTs for his 'Ultraviolet' album for a record-setting $11.7M.

We look under the hood of 3LAU's story, diving into what this means for crypto and the disruption of the music industry.

📺 Watch Episode 37 of State of the Nation

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📺 SotN #37: The Frontier of NFTs

Guest: Justin Blau | 3LAU

March 9th, 2021

Justin Blau, known by his stage-name 3LAU, has been experimenting in the crypto space since 2014. From February 25-28, he auctioned a total of 33 NFTs commemorating his album 'Ultraviolet', originally released in 2018. 3LAU discusses how he applied his knowledge of game theory to optimize the auction mechanism. The sales totaled $11.7M.

3LAU's biggest takeaway from all this is that the music industry is ripe for disruption. NFTs can remove intermediaries and bridge the gap between fans and creators. Transparent, immutable digital goods are increasingly accessible to the public. These tools promote direct-to-consumer transactions, democratization of data, and self-distribution.

The argument here is that given the technology of distributed ledgers, record labels are now obsolete. With an investable layer, fans are able to contribute capital and hold equity in an artist's work. 3LAU is pioneering how decentralized tokens can be optimized for medium-dependent art spaces. The future of art is decentralized, allowing infinite collaborative possibilities among fans and creators of all forms of media.

▽ @3LAU

NFTs will help artists recapture the emotional value they’ve accrued to their communities. That value has been previously usurped & rehypothecated to produce ad revenue by centralized platforms.

March 5th 2021

195 Retweets1,167 Likes

Resources:

Justin on Twitter

3LAU Website

3LAU NFT Auction

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