Audius is a decentralized music-sharing and streaming protocol that facilitates direct transactions between listeners and creators, giving everyone the freedom to distribute, monetize, and stream any audio content.
AUDIO is the native utility token of the network and it is used for the following:
Staking for running discovery or content nodes so users will get a higher probability of fan discovery and a share of network fees;
Staking to unlock exclusive features and services like artist tokens and badges, and receive voting power from fans who want to share in their success;
Participating in protocol governance voting to shape future iterations of the protocol.
The protocol consists of the following major components working in conjunction:
Content nodes: A user-operated network of nodes to host content and permission access to content on behalf of artists;
Content ledger: A single source of truth for all data accessible within the Audius protocol, anchoring references to content hosted by content nodes;
Discovery nodes: A user-operated network of nodes that index the Audius content ledger and provide an easily query-able interface for retrieving metadata;
Audius launched its mainnet in October 2020, with 1 billion AUDIO tokens minted and approximately distributed as follows:
Airdrop: 55MM AUDIO (5.50%)
Foundation Treasury: 180MM AUDIO (18.00%)
Team and Advisors: 405MM AUDIO (40.50%)
Investors: 360MM AUDIO (36.00%)