Audio is the native token of Audius, a decentralized streaming service built on Solana.

Listening to music is free, and artists who trend on the platform earn audio tokens as a reward.

Audio launched at the end of 2020 at about 19 cents. The price of the token spiked to $4.07 in March 2021, but had swiftly cratered to 73 cents by July of that year. A second surge in August brought the token to $3.20.

When the crypto market collapsed, so did audio, which fell to about a dollar by March 2022. Conditions further worsened when UST collapsed in May. Amid the ensuing chaos, audio fell to 46 cents.

Although Audius is based on Solana, audio is an ERC-20 Ethereum token. It also trades on Solana as a wrapped Ethereum token – it is converted from an ERC-20 token to a Solana variant through the multi-chain bridge, Wormhole.

Audio launched with an initial supply of 1 billion tokens. According to data from Messari, 36% went to investors; Audius raised $3.1 million in a venture round and $5.5 million in a Series A.

The founders and the project reserved 40.6% of the initial supply, and 23% went to pre-mined rewards and airdrops. Audius increases the supply by 7% each year, with new tokens issued weekly, although its maximum supply is capped at 1.1 billion.

Audius is a decentralized alternative to SoundCloud. Musicians – including deadmau5, Disclosure and RAC – upload their tracks to the Audius decentralized storage system. Fans can listen to them for free.

Audio holders can stake their tokens and run nodes to secure the platform. Audius rewards them with a cut of network fees, artists' tokens and badges, and governance rights over the platform.

On the back end, Audius is powered by a user-operated network of “content nodes” and “discovery nodes.” These replace centralized hosting services.

Content nodes host content streamed on the platform and govern who can access it. Discovery nodes help fans locate content by indexing the music in the Audius database. This lets listeners search for tracks using their metadata.

Audius requires node operators to stake a minimum of 200,000 audio tokens, and rewards them with more audio tokens for running nodes. The protocol adjusts the rewards according to the supply and demand for different nodes.

To raise the funds required to run the nodes, operators can tap other audio holders to receive delegated tokens. Node operators pay delegators a cut of their rewards.

Fans can also delegate their tokens to artists they like to share a cut of the revenues they earn on the platform. As of June 2022, the service counts 5.9 million monthly users.

Audius was founded by Roneil Rumburg, who also serves as the company’s CEO, and Forrest Browning, who serves as its chief product officer. Rumburg founded a bitcoin peer-to-peer payments company called Backslash. Browning, a Forbes “30 Under 30” recipient, also created StacksWare, a data center management platform.

In addition to deadmau5 and RAC, advisers include 3LAU, Bing Gordon, the co-founder of EA Games, and Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch. Mike Shinoda, Skrillex and Weezer have released tracks on Audius. Users have, however, uploaded plenty of pirated material, too.

The company counts Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Binance and Pantera as investors.

Audio is the platform’s governance token. Previous codes have granted money to Gemini Labs and updated nodes.

See also: Decentralized Music Streaming Service Audius Shifts Balance of Power, Says Bank of America