What do 3LAU, Diplo, and Steve Aoki’s manager know about music NFTs that you don’t?

$11.7 Million in 24 hours. That’s how much electronic music producer, 3LAU, brought in from the sale of his UltraViolet album. It was the first NFT ‘crypto’ album ever released and played a part in setting off the NFT boom in 2021.

NFTs have not stopped since, breaking record after record, as the industry continues to rocket up to the moon.

NFTs and ‘the metaverse’ are the new buzz words. And everybody and their grandma are trying to get in on the action. Facebook even changed their name to Meta! (Who got the joke there?) But how will music work and connect in the metaverse?’

For the last year, PFP (short for Profile Picture) collections have dominated the narrative with notable collections like Bored Apes, Dead Fellaz, Cool Cats, and Coolmans Universe… These are algorithmically-generated graphics that people have been buying, trading, and flexing on their Twitter profiles.

However, with a few exceptions like 3LAU’S UltraViolet, music based NFTs haven’t risen as fast as the art scene. But that may just be about to change.

Enter RELICS, a new ecosystem that is looking to bring music to the metaverse. Founded by Monstercat, the music label behind ‘Alone’ by Marshmello and soundtrack albums from Fortnite, Rocket League, Roblox, and Beat Saber, RELICS turns the full-length songs into digital collectibles that collectors can collect, trade and use for utility in the metaverse.

Check out 3LAU’s ‘UltraViolet’:

Imagine being able to host your own concerts, have your own theme songs, or incorporate music into different in game experiences using your own song collection. The possibilities are endless!

In the RELICS ecosystem you’ll be able to collect individual songs called RELICS as well as metaversal music players called IDOLS, that can be used to play RELICS in virtual worlds like Decentraland whom they’ve recently partnered with.

The GENESIS IDOLs – the 264 metaverse jukeboxes that already work with Decentraland and Jadu – were originally released for $200 last year and are now selling for almost $10,000.

Over the last couple days, 3LAU, Diplo, and Steve Aoki’s manager purchased IDOLs, and the floor for IDOLs has increased over 300% in advance of the first RELICS mint next week. RELICS goal is to make music NFTs accessible to everyone, from artists to collectors. By creating a standardised format and ecosystem for music NFTs, most artists and collectors are able to get involved without understanding the technical elements that block so many newcomers today.

RELICS is dropping their first collection of songs on January 25th, 2022 on the Nifty Gateway. To learn how you can get your RELIC on launch day, visit their official website.

Check out an explainer on NFTs:

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.