THE GREAT WAVE: an Artist Collective DAO

Musicians, Visual Artists, Industry Partners and Web3 Developers come together to form THE GREAT WAVE: an Artist Collective DAO

Award-winning singer-songwriter/producer Charlie Lim has announced that he is helping to launch The Great Wave: an Artist Collective DAO, together with a team of pioneers and veterans from the music, visual arts, media and tech industries.

In partnership with established DeFi project ACryptoS, The Great Wave aims to provide a platform that helps to fund artists’ projects, incentivise collaboration, and build a more flexible, sustainable and transparent model for the music industry. 

“I’m always inspired by new frameworks for coordination that can empower artists and their communities,” says Charlie, who has been a full-time artist for over 15 years and has signed with both major and independent labels. “While blockchain isn’t a silver bullet for all the problems we face, we believe the DAO can offer an alternative model for artists, industry partners, and our audiences –where having a stake in the collective means sharing in its success together.” 

DAOs, short for Decentralised Autonomous Organisations, are networks of stakeholders cooperating around common aspirations, and are emerging as the natural governance structure for online, borderless collaborations that enable collective ownership and democratises risk-sharing at scale. The Great Wave allows artists to reinvest a proportion of their commission fee back in the DAO’s governance token at a better rate, giving them more equity in the collective without having them to invest out of pocket. 

“Being in the music industry over the last decade, we’ve seen the ebbs and flows –with COVID-19 being a huge dampener on live music, which is a major source of revenue for the industry,” says Clarence Chan, founder of Bandwagon Asia. “At the same time, we’ve witnessed the rise of DeFi, NFTs and DAOs in Web3. These are paradigm shifts that can unlock new value for fans, artists, and those involved in the creation process.”

The constantly evolving crypto/Web3 space can be incredibly overwhelming, and having trusted partnerships is paramount to any project’s success. “While ACryptoS has become one of the more reputable and secure projects in the DeFi sphere, knowing their developers X and HM personally and making sure that our intentions and values were aligned was crucial,” says Charlie.

“One of the main ethos that we have is long-term sustainability and safety over short-term speculation,” says X, founder of ACryptoS. “For me, it is only meaningful and worthwhile to build something if it is for the long-term. There is a lot of experimentation going on in the space, and The Great Wave will find valuable use-cases that work with music and art.”

“The Great Wave’s projects will focus on utility and supporting our community,” says Clarence Yap, founder of The Music Circle, Umami Records, and former Head of Music at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay in Singapore. “For example, our governance NFTs prioritise ownership and access over scarcity as they are imbued with our staked governance token, so that anyone can own and be part of the collective while receiving perks.”

Yap adds that BNB’s fast transaction speeds and low gas fees keeps The Great Wave relatively accessible. “As we are keen to widen access for music audiences, we want to be considerate and lower the barriers to entry for those new to this space, and this means keeping things as simple and affordable as possible.”

Another key difference of The Great Wave compared to other Web3 projects is its conception via an open, community-first approach. “We wanted to start the collective with minimal pre-funding or private pre-allocations, allowing anybody to commit to the DAO,” says lead developer HM. “The conscious decision not to rely on bigger corporations or VCs from the beginning will also allow us to operate at a pace the collective is comfortable with.” 

“The goal is to create a balanced spread of resources, giving our artists the support they need through our shared networks,” says Keli Li, advisor of Canglo and former Head of Global Music at TikTok and Business Development at Universal Music. “We want to help to create more opportunities as we are no longer restricted by traditional music business models or product formats. The DAO allows us to be flexible and experiment with deal structures for different projects, not just digital releases –but curating our own exhibitions and shows in the future as well.”

Since the launch of its native token WAV early this year, The Great Wave has begun onboarding musicians, producers, visual artists, managers, and advisors from various industries and will put out its first release in Q2 of 2022. “We’re very fortunate to have a supportive network and hope to keep attracting talent that share similar values and want to navigate this space together,” says Charlie. “At the end of the day, we want to contribute to something bigger than ourselves.”