Welcome to Ric’s regular musings looking at the current music industry, its challenges and overall why and how Daft Springer’s web3 platform works so well for the independent music industry. Written by Daft Springer Chairman, Ric Yerbury.
Let’s get straight to it. Here is the argument; essentially crypto is ‘money for nothing’, ‘the emperor’s new clothes‘ and many other allegories and epithets.
Well, I will be upfront; a hell of a lot it has seemed at times to have been just that. However, all new areas of opportunities have their fill of snake oil salesmen and women out there which does not necessarily make them a bad thing overall.
When Mark Knopfler with some help from Gordon Sumner (aka Sting) penned the song “Money For Nothing”, he was recounting overhearing a rant from a delivery man watching MTV on how he saw life as an artist in the music industry as being “money for nothing“. So perhaps in both cases, it is a question of perception versus reality? Well in the case of the music industry and the life of the artist, our delivery man was well short of the mark. For any band or artist to get to the level where they are seen on TV or now Youtube or Tik Tok at any volume a lot has to happen before. More of that in a minute.
Turning back to the under-siege crypto industry. Frankly, it is very hard to stand up to the argument that a token wearing absolutely nothing but the emperor’s new clothes is contributing anything more than a chance for some to gain money for nothing. The regulators from the centralised world are already thinking that a lot of this could be fraud or, at best, parties being economical with the truth. In other words, this new world is not helping itself in promoting a new way of running things if it allows such a reputation to build.
So where do I stand? Well for me the growth in the application of de-centralised finance, DeFi, is to be supported and applauded in many areas of society and across many industries. There is a lot to criticise and be concerned about within the centralised world, not least certain governments. Before I dive into the world of realpolitik and the practical consideration of the challenges DeFi is trying to resolve, let us return to the question of whether Crypto is simply money for nothing, a scam or a Ponzi as part of some dystopian fantasy. Well yes, some of it has shown clear signs of some or all of this and it is to the discredit of an industry which is still embryonic in its role to deliver a fairer financial infrastructure.
Mistakes have been and will be made and snake oil remains appealing in the world where ‘greed is good’ as Gordon Gecko would have us believe.
So how do we avoid a situation where private citizens in countries where the climate or regime means that crypto seems to be their only refuge for managing their meagre funds can lose pretty well everything? I am thinking of a recent article about a Ukrainian man who put his savings of £8k into Terra and now was faced with nothing. In anyone’s eyes that is not right.
So off the soap box for a moment and to the practical, crypto is here to stay as we have all been saying, but lessons must be learned and the snake oil purveyors pushed away as soon as possible. Also, there is inevitably going to be a relationship between centralised authorities and DeFi. Defining that relationship and managing it will determine how successful we can be with the following steps.
Next time we can get back to the nitty-gritty of how Daft Springer is building its world in Web 3.0 and the practical solutions it is offering to artists and the wider industry on funding the future of music. We have some exciting news to come shortly and I will be covering that and a bit about the pros and cons of the NFT in music.
Positive stuff I promise, the sun is out (currently) and time to look forward, so I will leave you with the words from one of the eternal festival favourites: ‘Oh anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day’..
Until next time.
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