The Great Wave: Charlie Lim Co-Launches An Artist Collective DAO To Reshape The Industry

A gush of something new for the music industry (Credit: Courtesy of Canglo)

The surging hype of crypto and Web3 is not lost on the music industry. Like many other spheres, the innovative potential of this new-age revolution has found its way to music, rejigging long-established conventions that have been plagued with their fair share of problems.

One nagging area of concern that keeps coming up is the need for greater transparency between artists and the record labels that represent them. What can be done to ensure that musicians get an equitable cut from sales of their works? And to what extent can they retain ownership of their releases?

The Great Wave is an artist collective DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) that hopes to address these issues. Co-leading the rollout of this novel initiative is high-profile singer-songwriter, Charlie Lim, who’s spent the last 15 years navigating the highs and lows of working with major and independent labels. In partnership with DeFi (Decentralised Finance) project, ACryptoS, and other music industry partners including Bandwagon, Umami Records and Canglo, The Great Wave positions itself as a platform to help fund artists’ projects, incentivise collaboration, and build a more flexible and sustainable model for the music industry.

Charlie Lim is one of the several partners leading the charge of The Great Wave (Credit: Courtesy of Canglo)

“While blockchain isn’t a silver bullet for all the problems we face, we believe the DAO can offer an alternative model for artists, industry partners, and our audiences – where having a stake in the collective means sharing in its success together,” shares Charlie on the inception of this project.

For musicians, The Great Wave allows them to circumvent the potential problem of having their hands tied by record labels focused on opportunity cost. Instead, musicians get to own part of the collective itself, all while exposing their works to new audiences and receiving a fairer share of the profits. They will also be able to customise their release strategy to amplify their works, whether it’s through curated exhibitions or NFT-related promotions.

The Great Wave launched its native token, WAV, earlier this year, and is already aiming to put out its first release in Q2 of 2022. “We’re very fortunate to have a supportive network and hope to keep attracting talent that share similar values and want to navigate this space together,” adds Charlie. “At the end of the day, we want to contribute to something bigger than ourselves.”

For more information on The Great Wave and how you can benefit from it, visit its website.