Last Week’s Biggest Gainer: SounDAC +5,834%

• SounDAC Inspiration
• SounDAC Solutions
• SounDAC Promises Transparency
• Platform Coding
• White Paper
• SounDAC Team
• XSD Token
• Blockchain Music Competition
• Mysterious Blockchain Music

SounDAC is an autonomous royalty payments platform designed to put more control in the artist’s hands, while at the same time, giving distributors a more efficient business model to pursue. SounDAC (XSD) experienced record growth last week when XSD jumped up 5,834 percent in just five days. XSD went from $.07 on August 29, to a high of $.36 on September 4th. The coin is now trading at $.14 after experiencing market corrections over the last two days.  

SounDAC, called MUSE initially, entered the market on May 6, 2015. MUSE first made headlines when they partnered with fintech platform OpenLedger and Danish Bitcoin exchange CCEDK. The company chose to rebrand its product after realizing that MUSE is also a popular New York-based online career platform.

Last month the developers announced the rebranding via their social media accounts. During the change, the company was adamant that the rebranding didn’t involve any technical changes. In a Steemit post, the firm explained that the branding was necessary to prevent confusion. The successful rebranding fueled much of this week’s gains.

SounDAC Inspiration

The SounDAC platform provides all facets of the multi-billion dollar music industry with a blockchain-based alternative to the status quo. Recent reports published by Statista show that the US music industry revenue surpassed 17.2 billion USD last year. Analysts predict the industry to exceed 22.6 billion USD by 2021.  This expected growth has many in the space looking for better options.

Currently, musicians pay enormous fees to distributors, managers, and other essential production elements to release their finished product. SounDAC eliminates these costs. According to a one Billboard study, the average musician pays ten percent of their gross earnings to their agent and another twenty percent to their manager. These expenses occur before the deduction of any taxes, fees, or additional costs.

Additionally, Artists now face all-inclusive 360 deals. These deals differ from past contracts because they give record labels rights to all of the artist’s non-musical related activities. This style of record deal is now the industry standard. Most 360 arrangements provide record companies a cut from live performances, merchandise, endorsements, TV, movies, and the list goes on. This constant draining of funds leaves much to be desired by all parties in the equation, especially the musician.

SounDAC Solutions

The developers behind the SounDAC platform promise to alleviate these concerns, and many more, through the integration of an autonomous blockchain-based system. Their platform allows every participant in a song to receive automatic royalty payments including mastering, composition, streaming platforms, and publishing firms. SounDAC accomplishes these tasks with the use of smart contracts.

The SounDAC system creates a global ledger for musicians. This open database functions on Cryptonomex’s Graphene toolkit. The technology allows companies to develop decentralized applications, run exchanges, or integrate additional blockchain services. The popular cryptocurrency exchange, Bitshares, was the first company running the protocol successfully.

SounDAC Promises Transparency

SounDAC creates a rich, transparent, database of who is owed what via their blockchain protocol. Every time an artist’s music streams, the play is time-stamped and placed on the blockchain. This transparency provides all parties involved with an easier way to manage their revenue. It also reduces the costs to the artist because it eliminates the need for expensive publishing agreements.

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The use of smart contracts automates the entire procedure including monitoring plays, calculating royalties owed, and distributing funds. The protocol simplifies the music industry by removing multiple intermediaries from the equation. The trustless nature of the system is one of its main benefits.

Platform Coding

The SounDAC platform utilizes an open-source code. Users can review the platform’s coding via their GitHub page. Their GitHub shows 258 commits, 12 releases, and 12 contributors. The page shows 16 resolved issues to date. The company’s social media accounts are new due to the rebranding.

White Paper

The SounDAC platform has not released a whitepaper to date. When speaking with SounDAC’s President, Cedric Cobban, regarding this odd decision, he explained that competition in the blockchain music sector increased and that the firm “wants to have some traction before revealing the secret sauce.” While this approach is undoubtedly unique, it does leave unanswered questions from an investor’s perspective.

In most instances, it isn’t recommended to invest in companies that don’t have a whitepaper because you don’t know where, when, and what expenses your funds cover. It appears that investors were OK with investing in this platform, despite the fact it is without a whitepaper. While this may seem odd, it may be because it’s already operational and open-source.

SounDAC Team

The SounDAC team, led by Founder Eddie Corral and President Cedric Cobban, hopes to transform the music industry. Both men are executives at PeerTracks. PeerTracks is a popular ad-free blockchain-based streaming site. The website integrates into the SounDAC platform. This integration provides a blockchain alternative to traditional music streaming platforms such as Spotify or Pandora. It also enables SounDAC to offer an all-inclusive platform.

XSD Token

The XSD token has a total supply of 18,081,806. There are currently 14,581,806 XSD tokens in circulation. At this time, XSD tokens show a market cap of USD 2,104,288.  The company’s website doesn’t list any additional information regarding the XSD token.

Blockchain Music Competition

There is considerable growth occurring in the blockchain music sector, with multiple platforms scheduled for release this year. This growing competition fuels increased innovation in the space. Below are just a few of SoundDAC’s competitors:

• Ujo
• Viberate
• Mycelia
• Blokur
• Potentiam

Mysterious Blockchain Music

SounDAC chose an interesting strategy by not creating a whitepaper but instead having their code be available as open-source. The concept behind the project is strong, but this lack of readily available information could lead to potential confusion on the part of investors. Despite all of these glaring missteps, SounDAC managed to secure the spot as last week’s top gainer through a successful rebranding, and a firm understanding of the shortcomings of the music industry.