UK-based startup built on Avalanche empowers African musicians to build better fan relationships using NFTs

Ayoken is an NFT Marketplace designed to allow musicians and other creatives to monetize their work directly to their fans while providing them with exclusive perks and digital collectibles.

Ayoken, which operates in the UK, Nigeria, South Africa and France, launched its NFT marketplace after a $1.4 million pre-seed round earlier this month. Ayoken CEO and Founder Joshua King considers the project Patreon 2.0. A blockchain-based platform built on the Avalanche Channel that provides content creators with business tools while rewarding their fans and communities with exclusive perks and collectibles.

Excessive PFPs (profile picture) NFTs with little utility have been one of the toughest challenges in the NFT space. As supply increased, their floor prices generally dropped in 2021, leaving collectors with much lower value NFTs. This challenge has continued to plague the NFT space in 2022.

According to Joshua, Ayoken does not allow NFT minting without a pre-approved utility. This ensures fans aren’t bombarded with NFTs they can’t use. When fans buy collectibles from their favorite artists, they get exclusive access to album art and early access to the album before it’s available on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Music.

KiDi, a Ghanaian musician, has already partnered with Ayoken to release his first NFTs on June 1, 2022. According to tech media and startup company TechCrunch, Ayoken has invested in an arsenal of media partners and influencers to ensuring artists don’t have to rely solely on their existing social media communities to grow their reach.

Traditional creator platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have a 100% engagement rate. That is, they get 100% of the value of all content created on their platforms, while the creators earn nothing. YouTube has a 45% engagement rate. Web 3.0 companies are changing this dynamic and ensuring that creators get higher monetary value for their work.

Ayoken, like OpenSea, has a 2.5% participation rate. This ensures that 97.5% of the value generated on its platform is distributed to creators and their fans. While the mainstream music industry has seen musicians lose a lot of value to record labels, Ayoken wants to make sure musicians own their music and get the most out of their fans.

While Socios developed the Chiliz blockchain to improve relationships between fans and sports organizations, Ayoken created a platform to create social digital collectibles that drive fan loyalty and social engagement. So when your favorite musician grows their brand and hosts successful events, your collectibles associated with that musician increase in value.