Oli Fletcher on Dubplate Trade’s music industry blockchain solutions

0:01I'm Ashton Addison from event chain for investment pitch media in the crypto Coin Show and today on blockchain interviews with Ollie Fletcher the CEO of dubplate trade Ali welcome to the show and thank you so much for taking the time to be here today thanks for having us on Austin I'm really excited to dive into dubplate trade you're doing some interesting

0:21initiatives in revolutionizing the music industry through blockchain and nfts and I'm really excited to dive into those details so I would love for you to just kick it off with us for an overview of dub play trade and then we can dive in deep fantastic thank you um I guess it it would be prudent to start with that that in terms of blockchain we see digital

0:45um sorry decentralized applications as the future of not just blockchain but a lot of uh industry problems that are facing a lot of people so so we see um we see doublet trade as a solution for a problem with an industry that's not really utilizing blockchain at the moment um what we're trying to do is combine the music industry um and the digital ownership value that

1:11nfts bring to the block 10 blockchain industry um so what we're doing at the moment is we're building an MVP right of a platform an exchange that allows artists to submit uh their tracks or exclusive tracks specifically unreleased tracks um as nfts and then an exchange to which they would go and sell these nfts to their fans and so those are really the people that

1:34we're reaching out to um so at the moment what you've got is uh uh an economy of artists who are creating tracks and they're putting them as mp3s and putting them on USBS and selling them to 200 people 300 people um which kind of works um but the problem is that there's no digital ownership um nobody owns that so they don't feel like they shouldn't share it they send

2:00it to their friends and and slowly but quickly uh those tracks become easy to find on the internet um essentially what we believe in and what we're trying to do is harness the power of nft technology to create individual ownership on the public Ledger of blockchain so that people can own collectible individual prints of nft tracks mm-hmm very interesting Ollie and

2:25thank you for that intro and there's definitely a lot of issues in the music industry specifically for artists I feel like they get the short end of the stick quite often and you did mention a couple different solutions there digital ownership and providing uh more uh clear path from from the fans to the artists could you elaborate you know being in

2:44the music industry on some of those other main issues that you think are most predominant in the music industry and and how dubplate is going to provide those Solutions yeah also I think I think you've hit the nail on the head there you say artists have had the Short Straw like since the 90s where you would print a track onto a vinyl um and it's a physical asset something

3:05you can earn something you can value and something that you know isn't going to be um duplicated a thousand times tomorrow morning um alongside Spotify piracy and more recently covid which has stopped artists actually making any money from playing gigs um really the whole reason for this project was was kind of empathizing with that and realizing that artists need a

3:29new Revenue stream um the thing with dubs or dub plates is that they're specific tracks that have immense value because because they're unique they're special and they're collectible um the fact that they get shared around and devalued because of the digital Revolution is in our opinion a cardinal sin and what we want to do is we want to take the technology that's coming out now and

3:56admittedly no one understands it properly and especially not from industries that aren't for technical um we want to harness that we want to revolutionize the way that industry works um and and we want to ensure that the future is bright for artists who really have had a rough couple of decades um I think the other thing that as a team we primarily feel as crypto heads

4:21and as as techies is that there's a lot of middlemen um and so like our artists have so many different people taking cuts from their music from their art and you've already seen this like huge success of various different um nft uh exchanges and artists um why music should be treated differently as

4:47um is kind of silly like that that's the problem we're here to solve definitely and I saw that you're already working with a bunch of underground artists and there are a lot of EDM Artists that are coming out with their own nft plays right now and I think it is an ideal time with this Resurgence of uh digital copyright issues digital it seems most of the nfts are digital art

5:09but they also and what's underrated right now is digital music and digital tracks so as you're working with this nft play maybe you could explain a little bit more about the artists they create their nfts into tracks and then they're able to put them on the exchange how does that work for artists what are their limitations in in selling their nfts off

5:30and then how can uh viewers and listeners acquire those and utilize those yeah so you've got exactly like you say Azealia Banks has a vinyl on uh on Open Sea at the moment that's worth five million quid amazing that's fantastic but I think that dapps and the crypto Community is actually far more about community and

5:57far more about giving power back to the people right these massive artists creating huge running streams themselves is great but what we're trying to do is we're trying to build something that's accessible for everyone um so we're going to be creating the uh a platform where you can go through and you can create your own nft um you can value it yourself it's at no

6:18cost it comes back to you think of us kind of like a vinyl pressing place free it goes straight back to your wallet and then we'll have the exchange there as well the world's first nft music shop um inherently will have its own audience but if you feel like it's more appropriate to go and sell on open C or another NFC exchange then that's your right like it's your nft at that point

6:45um it's built on the ERC 721 um platform so that's um yeah that's that I want you to do whatever you need to do with your nft definitely and I I love that you have that that open ability you know you're not siloing them in uh like they are in the traditional industry where you're able to sell them through the dub plate nft exchange but also have them on the

7:11other marketplaces which are you know they more have digital art but there also is just a wider fan base on there like like openc or wearable or other marketplaces and I know there is this sort of mini competition between different marketplaces and where the network effect is going to be and where people will be able to see uh these nfts and acquire them and with dubplate

7:30creating their exchange more focused on the music industry how are you going to incentivize more users fans and listeners uh for user adoption on the dub plate exchange and to grow the exposure to the nfts on your platform in the early stages of launching it yeah look I think you're right likes to wear very early in the stage of our project um we've only been doing this for you

7:55know 2021 right at best um and so as much as we feel that we have a revolutionary idea and we feel that that is something that is going to fill a hole in Industry um we also need to have a number of marketing campaigns that that that appeal to the right people so for us there's like two very clear streams we've got um we've got the crypto side of things

8:21who are like we understand uh how that market works and we understand what you're trying to do and then we've got the music stream who are like a lovely bunch of people but they can be very stuck in their way um and so we've spoken to a few people from the music industry and they're keen and they want to know how they can help but realistically at this stage in time

8:41um what we're doing is we're creating a solution to a problem um so primarily with the marketing to the the crypto side of things for the time being we've actually got three really big marketing campaigns lined up for following our next round of token sales which we're really excited for at that stage in time will actually have an MVP we'll have something that musicians

9:03and fans can go and touch and feel and be like okay so this is actually the value that I get by using this platform so we're hoping to have that in a couple of weeks which we're super excited about um and then fundamentally we feel that that will help uh provide the value that the artists need to understand how this can be a revenue stream for them and

9:26fans how they can be acquiring exclusive music definitely and thank you for that and yeah I think starting with blockchain oriented uh crypto oriented uh groups to build a foundation is a smart move especially because uh the nft marketplaces do have technical barriers to entry although they're not uh that tough and they are easier to learn um when you get when you have a bit of a

9:49tech background I think the crypto Foundation is a great place to start and you did mention the token sale there and I know that you have the dub token that you've created within the ecosystem can you talk about the dub token more is it required to Mint nfts or to buy the tracks or how else is it used within dub play trade and does it create a sustainable ecosystem for dub play trade

10:12as a whole yeah 100 so so the dub token is really the fuel for this project um we're like three fairly normal guys other than our like love for crypto um and and subsequently I love the music um but so the dub token was something that we put on pre-cell at uh the beginning of May um and so all we've done is put um 500 000 tokens into circulation

10:41um and essentially what this token will have is three primary use cases um the first of which is going to be a governance token right we're building a decentralized app we believe in that being powered by the community um you have tokens you can make decisions on what happens on the project um the community is the the decision maker and fundamentally like we believe that's

11:03the way the decentralized apps should work the other piece is you will be able to use dub on the platform as a currency you will also be able to use if you will also be able to use usdt so you'll have a number of currencies we're not saying that everyone has to exchange their East Exchange their E4 dub to be able to buy the nfts we don't want to restrict the

11:25platform in that way however that could be something that goes to the government and and gets changed and then finally we want a reason for people to be able to take their tokens um so alongside uh 10 of each of the nft sales will go back to the original artists which is one of the primary things we're doing to help support that artist Revenue goal of ours as a

11:46business we'll also be taking two percent obviously nft sales to redistribute to token stakers um so those that have uh held and decided to stake their tokens uh through our app uh will fundamentally be rewarded as part of that economy and self-sustaining ecosystem very interesting and I'm interesting that you mentioned the staking there as well and you did mention that you have

12:11some updates coming out in in the coming weeks here and I would love to just get an overall snapshot and a forward-looking road map on what are the major Milestones as you continue to launch out the platform between now and you know the end of 2021 yeah so essentially what we did with our first round of token sales the the support was overwhelming it felt like

12:33people really understood the idea um we had two major things and that was marketing we need people to hear about this and know about this um and as I mentioned that was really to the crypto Community because they understand decentralized apps they understand the blockchain and it was also demobilizer Dev team and the dev team have been working away really hard

12:51um doing some great stuff we're now in the integration stage so integrating our smart contract with our UI we are very close to releasing our kind of like first edition uh of the exchange and then we'll be iteratively building on that and as I mentioned taking um advice from the community on how we want to um how we want to build that our next steps I will be doing some some next

13:17rounds of token sales to increase the liquidity as we build awareness um I mentioned we're working with some big names in the music industry to build Awareness on that side as well um we just want to make it accessible for everyone um we want to make it an application that music artists can come to and feel like they can use without necessarily needing to know all of the ins and outs

13:40of um you know how smart contracts and the blockchain works definitely and for the viewers uh listeners music fans and artists that want to get involved with dubplate in these early stages and start minting nfts and start downloading tracks uh what's the best way for them to get involved and to get more into the community easiest way jump on Twitter we're on

14:06Twitter and we update every day um we've got a telegram Community as well so come in ask us questions uh we're very transparent um we we just want to talk to people and reassure them that we're doing what the community wants um providing a service and as I said filling a hole in the market but also our website as well so uh trade check it out sounds great Ollie I will leave those

14:29website and community links in the description box below all the best with the continued launch of dub play trade and let's follow up in the near future appreciate Aspen thanks for having fun