February was a big month for music and NFT. Spotify has plugged into Web3 with its Token Gate playlist experiment, and Def Jam Records has signed the virtual band. Snoop Dogg is back with her new NFT drop, and Rihanna fans get a chance to own her royalties streaming “Bitch Better Have My Money” in time for her show at SuperHer Bowl halftime. However, NFT drops were not without controversy.
Overall, cryptocurrency prices rose in February, with Ethereum up 46% year-to-date. Based on an analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, here are the 10 of the top-selling music NFTs and collections for February 2023, combined with independent releases and secondary sales volumes on OpenSea.
1 / Rihanna – “Bitch Better Have My Money”
Monthly Trading Volume: $532,452
Primary Sales (February): $63,000
Secondary Volume: 284 ETH ($469,452)
Drop Date: February 9
While Rihanna was making history at the Super Bowl, her music was headlining the NFT space. Streaming her track “Bitch Better Have My Money”, a portion of her royalties were sold via her NFT on her Anotherblock on the Web3 platform, with sales of $63,000, plus her double sale of $469,452. We got the next trading volume. Her hype was amplified as Rihanna kicked off her Feb. 12 halftime set with the track, and her global streaming numbers for the week ending Feb. 16 increased to her increased by 594%.
However, the NFT drop was controversial. Not officially endorsed by Rihanna. Instead, the royalties were unlocked through shares to producer DEPUTY’s track, and it’s unclear if Rihanna was aware of it. NFTs have also quadrupled in value on the secondary market, far exceeding the theoretical return expectations based on streaming calculations.
The collection at OpenSea was later suspended on the grounds of “commitment of partial ownership and future profits based on that ownership.” This is something OpenSea does not allow. This proves that the positioning of NFT projects purely as investments is still at risk of regulatory scrutiny.
View your collection in OpenSea.
2/ Violetta Gironi – “Another Life”
Monthly Trading Volume: 167 ETH ($276,552)
Primary Sale (Feb): ~110 ETH ($182,160)
Secondary Volume: 57 ETH ($94,392)
Drop Date: February 17th
After a successful Genesis drop last year, singer-songwriter Violetta Gironi returned in February with a new collection. another life — EP with 5 tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Owners can access virtual his shows, live concerts, and use the songs in their own projects. To mark the release, Zironi held his 14-hour Twitter Spaces marathon with the community.
View your collection in OpenSea.
3/Children of the Apocalypse
Monthly Trading Volume: 10748 SOL ($243,979)
Primary Sales (Feb): 6,666 SOL ($151,318)
Secondary Volume: 4082 SOL ($92,661)
Drop Date: Feb.. 9
Kids of the Apocalypse (KOTA) is an ambitious and immersive music NFT project built on the Solana blockchain. It features graphic novel characters, a dystopian storyline, and Dark His Pop His soundtrack by veteran Swedish producer Stefan Storm (formerly a member of pop duo Sound of Arrows). KOTA is currently the largest music NFT project on Solana, a blockchain with faster speeds and lower transaction fees than Ethereum.
View your collection in OpenSea.
4/ MyFi Studio – ‘Wind Tunnels’ + ‘Circles Are Bad’
Monthly Trading Volume: 94.48 ETH ($156,458)
Primary Sale (February): 70.33 ETH ($116,466)
Secondary Volume: 24.15 ETH ($39,992)
Drop Dates: January 2023 (“Wind Tunnels”) and February 2023 (“Circles Are Bad”)
“Wind Tunnels” and “Circles are Bad” are innovative NFT instruments that can be played and manipulated in real time. They are fully coded on the Ethereum blockchain itself. This is very different from most music NFTs where the music is usually stored on an external server and the NFT simply contains a link to the music. However, “Wind Tunnels” and the subsequent drum machine project “Circles are Bad” were coded entirely on-chain.
Check out the ‘Wind Tunnels’ and ‘Circles Are Bad’ collections at OpenSea.
5/ Siri: Access Pass
Monthly Trading Volume: 82 ETH ($135,792)
Primary sales (February): None
Secondary Volume: 82 ETH ($135,792)
Drop Date: January 31st
Shilly, Bored Ape, who make chaotic pop-punk records, dropped a series of access passes in January allowing the community to participate in their music releases. The most exclusive pass, Band Her Pass, offers fans the opportunity to create music with Silly and participate in tracks. The project was hatched by her NFT imprint of Universal Music, presumably a label.
View your collection in OpenSea.
6/ Kingship
Monthly Trading Volume: 76 ETH ($125,856)
Primary sales (February): None
Secondary Volume: 76 ETH ($125,856)
Drop Date: July 11, 2022
The Bored Ape supergroup was part of a new pilot experiment on Spotify in February, where KINGSHIP Key Card holders were able to access a ‘Token Gate’ playlist on the streaming platform. The news sparked renewed buying activity for the KINGSHIP collection, which earned 76 ETH last month. Spotify is partnering with a total of four projects in the NFT space to test new features.
View your collection in OpenSea.
7/ Snoop Dogg – XYZ
Monthly Trading Volume: 45.2 ETH ($74,851)
Primary Sale (February): 44 ETH ($72,864)
Secondary sale: 1.2 ETH ($1,987)
Drop Date: February 3rd
Snoop Dogg is back with Web3, taking advantage of one of the biggest trends in the space right now: open editions. Instead of a fixed supply of NFTs and open editions (which are usually sold at a low price to make them more accessible to collectors), fans can create as many editions as they like within a set period of time. Web3 music pioneer RAC and his 3LAU both released open editions this month, but Snoop Doog blew the door down. This rapper sold over 10,000 editions in three days through Sound.xyz. Snoop Dogg’s “XYZ” each sold for his 0.0042 ETH (about $7), making him over $70,000 in total.
View your collection in OpenSea.
8. Sammy Arriaga – Metagirl (remix) featuring Nessy the Rilla
Monthly Trading Volume: 30 ETH ($49,680)
Primary Sale (February): 30 ETH ($49,680)
Secondary Volume: N/A
Drop Date: February 25th
Following in Snoop’s footsteps, independent country artist Sammy Arriaga also launched an open edition on Sound.xyz in February, aiming to surpass Snoop Dogg’s 10,000 sales with a series of NFT incentives. The biggest collector will be rewarded with a special reward, and the rest will participate in the lottery to win their valuable NFTs. As of this writing, Arriaga has sold over 5,000 of his. One collector has purchased over 1,000 of his NFTs, making him Sound.xyz’s largest holding NFT collector ever.
View your collection in OpenSea.
9/ Tycho – “The Science of Patterns”
Monthly Trading Volume: $19,000
Primary Sales: $19,000
Secondary Volume: N/A
Drop Date: February 25th
Electronic producer Tycho reissues his 20-year-old EP, The science of patterns, as its first digital release in February. As a twist, this record is available as his NFT exclusively from his Web3 fan club portal on his Tycho. Brought to you by Web3 technology company Medallion, the multi-track album format is completely new to Web3, allowing fans to stream entire albums within his NFT. His NFTs on previous albums are simply different than unlocking access to music elsewhere.
10/ WVRPSound
Monthly Trading Volume: 11.09 ETH ($18,365)
Primary sales (February): None
Secondary Volume: 11.09 ETH ($18,365)
Drop Date: January 17, 2022
WVRPSound is the largest music NFT project ever in terms of trading volume. Since its launch in January 2022, the collection of AI-generated music and animated characters has earned over 6,000 ETH (approximately $7.3 million). The project recently announced plans to release a playable version of the character in the sandbox metaverse.
View your collection in OpenSea.
methodology: This chart was compiled using data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases, and major music NFT sales combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data were obtained between 1 February 2023 and he 28 February. The crypto-to-USD conversion rate was calculated on February 28th.