The Problem with Digital Feudalism
When I first encountered blockchain technology, I saw it as the antidote to digital feudalism—a system where tech giants build walled gardens, harvest user data, and capture all the economic value while communities create the actual content. The promise was revolutionary: technology that could flip this model, making users the owners rather than the product.
But recognizing a broken system and fixing it are worlds apart. What followed was a seven-year masterclass in persistence, failure, and the brutal realities of bringing revolutionary technology to mainstream adoption.
Chapter One: The Education Experiment (2017-2018)
My first attempt at democratizing digital platforms was Trybe—a blockchain-based learning platform where people earned cryptocurrency for creating educational content. Built on EOS, it was designed to prove that communities could self-govern and fairly compensate contributors without corporate intermediaries.
The response was electric. We attracted 40,000 users who were passionate about both learning and earning in this new tokenized ecosystem. For months, it felt like we were pioneering the future of online communities—places where participation meant ownership, where contribution meant compensation.
The 2018 crypto winter shattered that dream. Market caps evaporated, token values plummeted, and user interest vanished overnight. Trybe became another casualty in blockchain's first major reality check. The technology worked, but the ecosystem wasn't mature enough to sustain user-owned platforms.
Chapter Two: The DeFi High and Terra Low (2020-2022)
Undeterred by our first setback, we dove headfirst into the decentralized finance revolution. In 2020, we launched a DEX on Terra, riding the wave of yield farming and automated market makers that was transforming how people thought about financial services.
This time, the numbers were staggering. Our platform reached $150 million in Total Value Locked, processing millions in trading volume daily. We had built something that people actually used and valued—a functioning piece of financial infrastructure in the emerging Web3 economy.
But success built on shaky foundations is still fragile. When Terra's algorithmic stablecoin experiment collapsed in 2022, it took our DEX down with it. Another promising venture destroyed by the volatility and experimental nature of early blockchain ecosystems.
Simultaneously, COVID was delivering the final blow to my nine-year-old Melbourne music venue. Lockdowns meant no shows, no revenue, and no path forward for a business built on bringing people together physically.
Chapter Three: Finding Signal in the Noise (2022-Present)
Standing in the wreckage of both my digital and physical ventures, I realized something crucial: I had been building solutions in search of problems rather than solving real problems with the right technology.
The music industry presented a perfect case study in broken economics. Artists earn fractions of pennies from streaming platforms while creating all the value. Record labels maintain opaque financial structures. Fans have no mechanism to directly support or co-invest in artists they believe in. Meanwhile, platforms like Spotify and Apple Music extract billions while giving creators economic scraps.
Here was a real problem that blockchain's core features—transparency, programmable economics, and user ownership—could actually solve.
The Translation Challenge
Previous failures had taught me that the music industry doesn't care about blockchain technology; they care about solving their problems. Similarly, crypto enthusiasts understand tokens and smart contracts but have no grasp of music industry economics or artist-fan relationships.
We needed to become translators, building bridges between two worlds that spoke completely different languages.
The Stealth Revolution
Our strategy became radical simplicity: deliver blockchain's benefits while hiding blockchain's complexity. Instead of pitching NFTs and DAOs, we focused on artist empowerment, fan engagement, and new revenue streams.
We started with a marketplace where artists could sell digital collectibles that came with real utility—exclusive tracks, concert access, behind-the-scenes content. But we quickly learned that artists were drowning in platforms, not lacking them.
The breakthrough came when we shifted to infrastructure: enabling artists to build their own websites where they could sell products (digitally verified through blockchain), engage fans directly, and create reward systems for their most supportive community members.
The blockchain technology powers everything—purchases become NFTs, social sharing earns tokens, fan activities create transparent value exchanges—but artists and fans experience it as simply better tools for connection and commerce.
The Stakeholder Transformation
What we've built goes beyond better artist tools. We've created a mechanism for transforming passive music consumption into active economic participation. Fans don't just buy songs; they become stakeholders in an artist's success with programmable incentives to promote, support, and invest in their favorite musicians.
This creates genuinely aligned incentives. Artists build sustainable businesses with dedicated supporters who have skin in the game. Fans get authentic ownership stakes and exclusive access to artists they're helping to promote. Everyone benefits when the music succeeds.
Seven Years of School Fees
The path to this realization has been expensive in every sense—financially, emotionally, and professionally. We've survived two major crypto crashes, a global pandemic, and countless moments of doubt about whether Web3 would ever achieve mainstream adoption.
But each failure taught essential lessons. Trybe showed us that communities want to own their platforms but need sustainable economic models. The Terra DEX proved that people will use Web3 products that provide clear value propositions. Running a music venue revealed the deep structural problems in how artists connect with and monetize their audiences.
Beyond Music: The Stakeholder Economy
While our current focus is music, we're actually building infrastructure for a broader transformation—from platforms that extract value to platforms where users become stakeholders. This model has applications across content creation, social media, e-commerce, and any industry where communities create value for platforms.
Every fan who earns value for promoting their favorite artist, every artist who maintains direct relationships with their audience, every transaction that happens transparently on-chain represents a small victory against extractive platform capitalism.
The Long Game
The music industry is finally beginning to notice what we're building, but adoption is still early. Changing fundamental economic relationships requires more than better technology—it demands cultural shifts in how people think about ownership, participation, and value creation online.
But after seven years of persistence through multiple market cycles, I'm convinced that patience and product-market fit will eventually overcome the friction of innovation. Music, with its passionate fan communities and desperate need for fair economics, might just be the perfect testing ground for proving that Web3's ideals can become mainstream reality.
Sometimes the most important revolutions happen quietly, one stakeholder at a time.
Fingers crossed the new frontier makes a difference!