London, UK – July 2nd, 2024: Wavlake, the music and podcasting distribution platform built for the open value-for-value economy, announces a groundbreaking partnership with ZBD, a leading payments company powering digital economies. This collaboration creates a new model where creators can seamlessly connect with audiences and directly monetize their content.
Streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music are infamous for meager artist royalties (Spotify recently announced zero payouts for tracks with less than 1,000 annual streams). Wavlake, on the other hand, fosters a fan-driven creator economy that thrives in an open ecosystem. Since its 2023 launch, Wavlake has become a haven for independent musicians, artists, and podcasters, providing them with the financial support needed to focus on their craft.
Wavlake allows creators to upload music and podcasts for distribution across various apps and platforms, including the podcasting 2.0 platform Fountain.fm. Uniquely, Wavlake empowers listeners to directly tip their favorite artists on any platform where Wavlake distributes content. This innovative approach, free of minimum payouts, fosters a direct online environment for seamless transactions between creators and fans. This is achieved through the Bitcoin Lightning Network, enabling instant microtransactions (fractions of a Bitcoin called “sats”) – a significant advantage over traditional, slow, and expensive payment processors.
A rising Nashville musician, Ainsley Costello, became the first artist to receive 1 million sats (over $700) for a single track, her hit “Cherry on Top.” To earn a similar amount on Spotify, an artist would need nearly half a million streams. Ainsley’s latest track, “People Pleaser,” released exclusively on Wavlake and Fountain, garnered over 300,000 sats (over $200) within the first 24 hours, with immediate payout to the artist. In less than a year using Wavlake’s non-traditional distribution platform, Ainsley surpassed her earnings from nearly five years on traditional streaming services.
Ainsley enthusiastically shared, “The music industry desperately needs a shake-up, and Wavlake offers a beacon of hope. Major players like Spotify and Apple have dominated access to revenue and fan data for far too long. Wavlake disrupts this model. It dismantles the financial and social barriers separating artists and fans. It replaces the outdated subscription and advertising model, proving that when fans have control over where their money goes and how much they value music, everyone wins. I’m incredibly grateful to have found a supportive global community that truly values me and my music. In just four months on the platform, my song-related income has skyrocketed tenfold. This is a game-changer.”
The ZBD partnership equips Wavlake with a global, highly scalable payments infrastructure capable of handling any transaction volume. This empowers Wavlake to compete with mainstream music platforms and streaming services, with ZBD managing all payment functionalities. Through ZBD’s technology, creators can connect a Bitcoin Lightning Address to their profiles, facilitating direct fan payments. This exceptionally efficient system allows for transactions twenty times smaller than a single cent, fostering a deeper connection between artists and fans, bypassing traditional, often biased recommendation algorithms.
“We’re thrilled about Wavlake’s mission to revolutionize the music and podcasting landscape by fostering a more equitable environment,”said Ben Cousens, Chief Strategy Officer at ZBD. “Witnessing the power of instant, global, and micro-sized payments driving positive change for creators is incredibly fulfilling. Use cases like this are precisely why we built the ZBD platform.”
About Wavlake
Wavlake empowers musicians and podcasters to publish and distribute their creative work openly across the internet, receiving Bitcoin from anywhere in the world for their content. When you publish a track on Wavlake, the audio is accessible by any application that supports open protocols like Podcasting 2.0 (RSS) and Nostr. Every track you publish can also receive Bitcoin micropayments via the Lightning Network. This means your music or podcast is freely accessible and has the potential to earn revenue globally.
About ZBD
ZBD is a leading FinTech company building innovative payment technology on top of the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Backed by prominent global VCs and gaming studios like Initial Capital, Lakestar, Kingsway Capital, The Raine Group, and Square Enix, ZBD’s sophisticated tools empower developers to effortlessly integrate seamless payment functionality into their products. ZBD eliminates the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds by enabling instant global transactions of any size for any game, website, or application through the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Learn more about ZBD and the benefits it offers developers and gamers alike at zebedee.io.
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