On January 16, 2019, Bitfury announced the launch of their new open source music platform called Bitfury Surround. It seeks to streamline the various processes of commercializing music as well as the sharing of revenue.
From Mining to Music
Bitfury, known in the blockchain world for their bitcoin mining-rig manufacturing, has forayed into the music business, announcing BitFury Surround in a blog post on January 16, 2019.
The new platform utilizes blockchain to solve one of the most common problems in the music industry: the sharing of revenue between the creators of the music itself and the various middlemen. The statement writes:
“The Surround platform will enable the entire music entertainment industry to streamline operations through secure transfer of copyright assets, streamlined connectivity as well as better monitoring and management systems,”
What the Platform is About
The platform will be developed as well as run on the bitcoin blockchain. It is designed to foster collaboration and innovation with the industry whilst bringing uniformity to business practices.
Various processes such as copyright transfer and the management of uploaded content are streamlined on the platform. With thanks to blockchain technology, mismanagement of funds and issues with the distribution of revenue are also prevented.
All these are in an effort to ensure transparency in the music industry, says Valery Vavilov, the CEO of Bitfury.
Some of the services that the platform will provide include Service Legal Agreement capabilities, Payment rails and collaborative ownership of assets.
The end goal of this platform, Bitfury says, is to solve a number of problems in the industry such as fraud, slow cash flow, and unclear monetary allocation as well as administrative inefficiency.
The team behind this new platform includes Stefan Schulz, a veteran of the music industry who has served as a founding member and Executive Vice President of Universal Music Digital. Schulz will be coming on board as the music division’s CEO.
Bitfury Surround will be based in Europe and its first projects will launch in Amsterdam and Berlin. However, the press release states that other operations will launch in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, and Moscow.
Moving Away From Mining
The last few months have been a time of great expansion for Bitfury. They raised over $80 million in their last closed funding round and partnered with BTCBIT to launch a Bitcoin Lightning Network payment channel.
This expansion move could also be a means for Bitfury to hedge their bets, as the costs of mining have made the business less profitable since the Bitcoin price slump.
