Guns N’ Roses Drummer Matt Sorum To Create Blockchain Platform For Artists
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer Matt Sorum is creating a blockchain platform that will allow both artists and fans to share and monetize artistic talent from anywhere across the globe.
Matt Sorum is an American drummer and percussionist. He is best known as both a former member of the hard rock band Guns N’ Roses, with whom he recorded three studio albums, and as a member of Velvet Revolver. Sorum is currently a member of the touring project, Kings of Chaos, and is a former member of both The Cult and Y Kant Tori Read. Sorum was also a member of Guns N’ Roses side-projects, Slash’s Snakepit and Neurotic Outsiders, and released a solo album, Hollywood Zen, in 2004.
Called Artbit, the platform will allow up-and-coming creators to fund their passions through a crypto-economy powered by the Hedera hashgraph platform, which offers a public, distributed ledger that enables anyone to easily develop globally distributed applications.
The goal of the Artbit platform is to help unsigned and unrepresented artists such as musicians, street artists, and performers, dancers, and magicians to get paid. Artbit will address the problem by providing exposure and capital to independent artists, while protecting their intellectual property and equipping them with the tools needed to manage the business side of their craft.
Artbit users will be able to produce live shows and performances through the platform, linking artists’ performance locations to any of Artbit’s virtual stages. Fans from around the world can then watch these live performances, conducting interactions (liking, sharing, and attaching AR filters) while generating micro-income for both the artist and curatorial public. Through the use of augmented reality and gamification, both fans and performers will have the opportunity to be part of the show.
The goal is to have the technology move into beta by the fall, with a full launch expected next year.
“Before I had any recognition as a musician, I was roaming back alleys in Hollywood, playing any gig I could get, sleeping on couches and surviving off Top Ramen,” said Sorum. “Today, getting recognition is easier, but getting paid is even harder. With Artbit, we’re giving power back to the fans to tell the world who deserves attention, and we’re giving a platform to artists to turn their dreams into a paying reality.”
“We believe in a more equitable, trusted, and secure online world,” said Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera hashgraph. “We believe in a multiverse where you can carve out your own piece of cyberspace, be confident when interacting with others, control how you collaborate, and decide who benefits from your work and how. We are pleased to be working with Artbit to bring that vision to the artist community, a community that thrives and grows on collaboration and support of one another.”
