teleo-codex/decisions/internet-finance/open-music-futardio-fundraise.md

type	entity_type	name	domain	status	parent_entity	platform	proposer	proposal_url	proposal_date	resolution_date	category	summary	tracked_by	created
decision	decision_market	Open Music: Futardio ICO Launch	internet-finance	failed	open-music	futardio	Open Music team	https://www.futard.io/launch/4R1peXdUehAS1aWCdnrBfLRevGktsKH2euvBLdsYXbWu	2026-03-03	2026-03-04	launch	Open Music raised $27.5K against $250K target (11% fill rate) for an artist-first streaming platform on Solana — failed and refunded	rio	2026-03-24

Open Music: Futardio ICO Launch

Summary

Open Music, an artist-first streaming platform on Solana that replaces Spotify's pro-rata pool model with direct fan-to-artist payments, attempted to raise $250K through a Futardio ICO. The project attracted only $27.5K in commitments (11% fill rate), making it one of the weakest-performing launches in the v0.7 cohort. The launch failed and all funds were refunded.

Market Data

• Outcome: Failed (Refunding)
• Total Committed: $27,533
• Funding Target: $250,000
• Fill Rate: 11.0%
• Duration: 2026-03-03 to 2026-03-04

Significance

Open Music's 11% fill rate represents one of the weakest commitments in the v0.7 Futardio cohort, despite addressing a real problem (Spotify's $0.003/stream payout to artists). The ambitious $250K target for a two-person team with an MVP at openmusic.art suggests a disconnect between the project's stage and its fundraise ask. The roadmap listed milestones dating back to Q2 2025 — well before the March 2026 launch — which may have signaled execution concerns to potential backers.

Relationship to KB

• open-music — parent entity
• metadao — ICO platform

Full Proposal Text

Source: futard.io, launched 2026-03-03

Open Music — Artist-First Streaming on Solana

The Problem

Spotify made $20 billion last year. The average artist got $0.003 per stream.

That's not a royalty. That's a rounding error.

The pro-rata pool model means your streams compete against every other stream on the platform. The top 1% extracts most of the value. Everyone else gets a mystery deposit and no explanation.

Artists don't own their audience. They don't know who's listening. They can't contact their fans. The platform owns that relationship — and rents it back to you via algorithm.

Discovery is pay-to-play. Label money gets pushed. Independent artists fight for scraps.

This isn't a flawed system. It's a system working exactly as designed — just not for you.

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The Solution

Open Music replaces the pool with a direct model.

Every subscriber's payment goes only to the artists they personally listened to that month. Not split across millions of tracks. Directly to you, proportional to your listeners' time.

	Spotify	Open Music
Model	Pro-rata global pool	Your listeners only
Platform cut	~30%	10%
Payout breakdown	None	Full — per listener
Payout method	Bank (high minimums)	USD wallet + USDC / Solana

What 100 fans actually pays you:

• Spotify: ~$9/month
• Open Music: ~$128/month

The difference isn't a rounding error. It's a different system entirely.

Three shifts that matter:

01 — Money flows directly to you No pool. No mystery. Your listeners' subscription goes to you based on their listening, every cycle.

02 — Your audience is yours You see who's listening, who paid you, and how much. No black box. No algorithm controlling your reach.

03 — Discovery based on sound, not budget AI-powered sonic similarity matches your music to listeners based on what it actually sounds like. No promoted slots. No gatekeepers. No label budget required.

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Traction

• MVP is live at openmusic.art
• Artists can upload and receive payments today
• Early community forming — artists onboarding as co-builders, not beta testers
• Built on Solana — payouts in USD wallet + USDC

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Team

Two full-stack developers with end-to-end ownership of the product — from Solana payment infrastructure to the AI discovery layer to the artist dashboard.

Raise funds will be used to bring on a third developer to accelerate delivery.

No VC. No label. No outside agenda. Built by people who were tired of waiting for the industry to fix itself.

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Use of Funds

Raise target: $250,000 Monthly burn: ~$25,000 Runway: ~10 months

Category	Monthly	%
Engineering (2 devs + 1 hire)	$18,000	72%
Infrastructure & Solana RPC	$4,000	16%
Growth & Artist Acquisition	$2,000	8%
Legal, Ops & Contingency	$1,000	4%

Capital is lean by design. Every dollar goes toward shipping and artist onboarding — not marketing spend or vanity metrics.

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Roadmap & Milestones

Q2 2025 — Foundation

• Stable artist upload + payout flow
• Direct fan-to-artist payment model live
• 50 founding artists onboarded
• Solana USDC payout integration

Q3 2025 — Discovery

• AI sonic similarity engine (v1)
• Listener-facing discovery feed
• Artist dashboard: who paid, how much, per cycle
• Fan subscription management

Q4 2025 — Scale

• Mobile-optimized experience
• Artist analytics + audience ownership tools
• 500 active artists
• Governance layer + OM token utility

Q1 2026 — Ecosystem

• Open API for third-party integrations
• Label / collective tooling
• Cross-platform artist identity (wallet-linked)
• 2,000+ artists, measurable payout delta vs Spotify

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Market & Differentiation

Target market:

• Independent artists with existing listeners (1K–100K monthly streams)
• Solana-native creators and music NFT communities
• Fans who want their subscription to actually reach their artists

Why now: The creator economy backlash against platform extraction is at a peak. Artists are actively looking for alternatives. The infrastructure (Solana, USDC, AI) now makes a direct model viable at scale for the first time.

Competitive edge:

	Spotify	Bandcamp	Sound.xyz	Open Music
Direct payout model	X	Partial	Partial	Y
Subscription-based	Y	X	X	Y
AI sonic discovery	X	X	X	Y
Artist owns audience	X	X	X	Y
Onchain / Solana	X	X	Y	Y

No one else combines the subscription model, direct payout, AI discovery, and audience ownership in a single platform.

That's the moat.