NEAR Powers Voting for the Djooky Music Awards
NEAR FOUNDATION
April 4, 2023
The world of music and the blockchain is about to get a lot more exciting and promising thanks to Djooky and NEAR. The ongoing Djooky Music Awards (DMA) for undiscovered artists will feature on-chain voting mechanisms powered by NEAR, allowing artists to vie for funding and recognition, while voters compete for cash prizes.

For upcoming independent artists, Djooky serves as a streaming and discovery tool that links them to fans and industry insiders. Artists can also use the platform’s virtual marketplace, DjookyX, to receive funding by fractionalizing rights to future song royalties. Bringing DMA voting to NEAR will bring further engagement and innovation between musicians and fans.

That means voting for DMA finals will be completely on-chain using NEAR, with weekly prizes being distributed in the form of NEAR tokens. Artists simply need to create a NEAR wallet to claim their prizes. In addition, any users trying to predict the next big hit with HitHunder will need a NEAR wallet to receive token rewards if their song strikes gold.

How the DMAs empower both artists and fans
The DMAs were introduced in 2020 by Djooky co-founders Andrey Dakhovskyy and Brian Malouf as a way to help fans discover new artists and aid musicians in gaining visibility. The competition runs year-round, resetting every quarter with new awards and prizes. The DMAs run tournament style, with artists competing brack-style on the national, continental, and finally global level.

In the event that a contestant makes it to the finals, their music will be featured on an 18-song NFT album, the sales of which will be divided equally among the lowest 15 projects. If their song is selected as one of the top three songs, it will have its own NFT auction with bonus artwork created by a digital artist. Djooky also provides a platform to help artists reach a global audience, even if their song doesn’t end up topping the charts.

Additionally, Djooky runs weekly HitHunter competitions where users vie with one another to identify the next likely hit song by assigning HitPoints to songs they like. Users receive 100 Hitpoints every Monday, which they can then spend on the tracks they believe will be the biggest hits. HitHunters are ranked according to how early they allocate their HPs to tracks that become hits in the Djooky charts when compared to other HitHunters.

Users allocate their Hit Points to the songs which they identify as potential hits. And depending on the progress of the songs chosen, users receive winning points calculated by the platform’s algorithm. The top five users of the special user charts will be rewarded with get cash prizes for backing the right tunes.

NEAR x DMAs fueling a new future for musicians
The Djooky team and NEAR Foundation previously collaborated to develop DjookyX, their music marketplace that’s presently transitioning from Web2 to Web3. The DMAs and DjookyX demonstrate new economic models for fans and musicians in Web3, all made possible by technology and governance mechanisms of the NEAR blockchain.

As the DMAs and DjookyX marketplace grow, so will opportunities for musicians to earn more for their creative energy, and for fans to truly support undiscovered musicians they love.

