Introducing Altostream

Funding Tier: Tier 1

Project Overview
Altostream uses blockchain’s revolutionary tokenized economics to take control of the music industry back from corporate conglomerates and put it back in the hands of the creatives, curators, and listeners.

Project title and description of the project.
Title: Altostream
Project Description: Altostream was designed to let creators maximize the earnings from their work, with no gatekeepers. Now your favorite band will earn more because you have them on repeat.

How will this project be integrated into Conflux?:
Altostream will leverage the authenticated, transparently accounted power of blockchain smart contracts to fairly reward value to Creators, Curators, and the Community on the platform via Conflux Network.

Altostream Blockchain, deployed on Conflux’s Network, contains unique identifiers for contributors, infrastructure providers, app developers, and validators, including listeners, allowing any music content platform to adopt the same usage to properly identify and record contributions made by stakeholders.

Why is your team interested in creating this project?
Because we’re focused on the creator, we’ve designed the system to be cheat-proof, more affordable for listeners, and with higher streaming revenues for artists. It’s music to the ears, literally.

All current music streamer platforms extract value from the Creators (musicians/artists) via exploitative contracts. They supplant Curators (DJs, music journalists) by flexing algorithms to source playlists. Ultimately, this undercuts the formation of music Communities that dynamically interact, co-create, and celebrate their cultural connection. Music streaming platforms evolved to solve the issue of piracy, but now they’ve turned out to be the pirates themselves.

We want Altostream to achieve a balanced system to favor all its contributors and to ensure every decision aligns with all parties’ interests.

Project Details:
The core concept: $ALTO tokens, reward Creators for sharing their music on the platform, Curators for sharing and promoting the Creators’ music, and the Community of music fans for engaging with Creators and Curators.

Altostream’s listener base will:

  1. Pay a standard fee by listening to unlimited streaming of songs.
  2. Their fee gets converted to tokens on Altostream’s backend.
  3. Tokens are proportionally rewarded to Altostream creators and curators.

For example, let’s say the day is July 1st, 2021. Johnny subscribes to Altostream for $7.99 a month to listen to unlimited ad-free streaming. Because Altostream just launched, doesn’t have many users, and doesn’t have many artists yet, it is worth 7999 tokens. At the end of the month, every artist (or playlist curator) he listened to during July will receive an allocation of his total tokens proportional to his engagement with their creative or curatorial value.

Now let’s say it’s a year later, July 1st, 2022. Johnny is still a subscriber at $7.99 for unlimited streaming. However, Altostream is now far more popular, has many users, and many artists. Instead of Johnny’s $7.99 earning him 7999 tokens, it is now only worth 79 tokens. Johnny can still listen to the same amount of unlimited music, and at the end of January, the artists (or playlist curators) still receive a proportional allocation of his total $7.99 worth of tokens… It’s just fewer tokens because the token price has increased 100x. They receive the same total payout value so they are happy and the early token holders are VERY happy because their tokens have appreciated 100x.

As Altostream’s bank of tokens draws down, the scarcity drives the price of each token to increase dramatically until it hits a market equilibrium. When artists want to sell their tokens and cash out they sell them back to Altostream at the current token price. Those tokens go back into the Altostream market for sale.

Community members will be incentivized to become Curators or even Creators in their own right, and could potentially be paid by Curators or Creators in $ALTO to engage in promotional activity. The $ALTO token creates an entire musical economic platform where the only limit to the Community’s generativity is imagination.

Any mockup designs of user-facing components.
User Login

User Dashboard/Music Player

Song View/Player Mode

Artist/Content Provider Dashboard

Wallet Page

Security Page

Visit https://altostream.app
To Access the Wallet, visit https://wallet-beta.altostream.app/login
To Access Artist Service: https://artist-beta.altostream.app

Overview of the technology stack being used, including API specifications, and documentation of core components.

We have Designed Altostream in a Robust and Dynamic Way of Engineering with Scalability in Mind.

Altostream Blockchain Service:
Token and Reward Algorithm smart-contract is written in Solidity and deployed on Conflux Network.

Altostream Maintains a high level of System Architecture built using Microservices.
User Service: React, Nodejs, and MongoDB
Wallet Service: React, Nodejs, Shuttle Flow, and Conflux SDK
Artist Service: React, Nodejs, Shuttle Flow, and Conflux
Mobile Application: Flutter
Other Services: ACR Cloud (Audio Fingerprint and Recognition)
Database Management: SQL and MongoDB

Ecosystem fit: How can the project benefit Conflux Network’s ecosystem?
The streaming music arena is cacophonously crowded - Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google all offer elite-engineered streaming music services. Startups entering the space will find few customers who haven’t already made their streaming platform choice. Plus, it would be next to impossible to beat these entrenched multi-billion dollar behemoths on customer price value.

Amazon and Google use music as loss-leader content to keep users within their bundled ecosystems - “Listen to Amazon music so we can have you pay attention to buying from Amazon.” Apple and Spotify offer unlimited play and downloads for multiple users for only $14.99 a month. Simply put, streaming startups entering the music market can’t compete head-to-head against unlimited play for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

There is a tremendous opportunity to not only enter the streaming music space but overturn it completely. The iTunes store leveraged new technology - bigger hard drives to hold songs, faster internet for downloads - to usurp the record industry. Spotify gave Apple a taste of its own medicine and disrupted the iTunes store by leveraging high-speed wireless cellular streaming to offer unlimited content. And now, on the cusp of the blockchain revolution, there is an opportunity to disrupt the creative content delivery industry once again. Enter Altostream.

The critical question for Altostream is “Where is the new leverage point in the streaming music industry to disrupt?” The answer is Payments, specifically the rewarding of fair value to the three core Cs of the music industry: Creation, Curation, and Community, and all this will be done using the Conflux Network.

Community members will be incentivized to become Curators or even Creators in their own right, and could potentially be paid by Curators or Creators in $ALTO to engage in promotional activity. The $ALTO token creates an entire musical economic platform where the only limit to the Community’s generativity is imagination.

Team:
Emmanuel Alisiobi - Co-founder
Komolafe Olusegun - Co-founder/Engineering Lead(https://www.linkedin.com/in/segun-joshua)
Paul Taiwo - Frontend Developer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-taiwo)
Akinsuyi Joshua - DevOps/Backend(https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-akinsuyi)
Bewaji Kayode - Product Manager(https://www.linkedin.com/in/oluwakayode-bewaji-138a13103)
Gideon Oladimeji - Product Designer(https://www.linkedin.com/in/scalarbane/)
Brendan Joyce - Advisor(https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-joyce-0305469/)

Legal Registered Name: Altostream Inc

Team’s Github code repositories: https://github.com/altostream

Development Roadmap:
Q4 2020
Status: Completed
Milestone Requirement: Altostream Platform
Underlying Altostream application, storage system, deploy smart-contract to testnet and API.

Q2 2021
Status: Ongoing
Milestone Requirement: Altostream Web
End-user web application, artist services, user service, wallet service, and website launch.

Q3 2021
Status: Completed, testing ongoing
Milestone Requirement: Altostream Developer Tools
Client API’s and SDK’s to allow developers to interface with the platform

Q4 2021
Status: Available of Testflight
Altostream iOS & Android, Pre-Launch
End-user mobile application for listeners, Internal billing system, tidy public repositories, security audit.

Q1 2022
Altostream Full-Launch
OnBoarding listeners and artist

Long Term Vision What is the team’s long-term vision for the project?

  1. Management of Label/Artist Contract via smartcontracts.
  2. Blockchain-Based CDN - A Blockchain-powered Content Delivery Network (CDN) which would help to utilize the collective unused space from the users worldwide by building decentralized applications to create untameable intellectual property records.
  3. Protect legal contracts between artists and record companies with the security of Altostream.

Community Engagement: We would submit posts and articles that would be used to engage members of the Altostream Community, we would also have a live event in which we would showcase the beautiful tech we are building on Conflux.

Delivery Requirements: Altostream Wallet will be available for public testing in new weeks, community members can begin testing the beta app for wallet using this link https://wallet-beta.altostream.app/login.

1 Like

Hello Altostream!

Very nice concept that you guys have been working on realizing! The screenshots look awesome and if you guys have a pitch deck that you can include that’d be great!

The idea of a BAT-like tokens to give to artists is great, therefore I have the following question:

Q1 - What are you plans on getting artists to upload their music onto Altostream?
Q2 - Are you in touch with artists that will be uploading their songs from the beginning?

Also, it sees like the sign-up isn’t working! Would love to test out your product!

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Q1 - Strategic partnerships with content distribution providers. We are also working on a referral system, which allows artists to onboard other artists into the platform. We’ve also drafted promotional plans that would help engage more artists to come onboard and upload their songs.

Q2 - We have been in touch with several artists and also their management, we’ve onboarded close to 500 artists during our soft launch early this year. We would keep reaching out to these organizations to get more of their talents onboard.

We are pushing a fix for signup soon.

Hey Altostream! Thanks for submitting your grant application, this is an exciting use case. There are a few things I’m not clear on and would be great if you could provide some more details:

  1. Token model: Do you have a whitepaper you can share? It’s unclear what the value flows and interactions between artists, curators, and the community actually are.
  2. Go to market: I agree with Christian that onboarding artists will be key here, can you provide details on how you will attract artists, the challenges you have faced, and what type of artists you expect to onboard successfully? How do you also plan to bootstrap this multi-sided marketplace, and incentivize early curators and users?
  3. Music: What is the licensing model for artists here and in what markets will Altostream operate?
  4. Grant Details: What is the total $ for the grant application, and what are you proposed milestones? Beyond the technical deployment, would be good to see some community based milestones and objectives.

Very cool idea, look forward to learning more!

Token model: We have broken down the token Model in the Presale site, you can visit https://presale-beta.altostream.app and select the Token Information on the Menu.

Go to market:
Why would Artists use Altostream instead of Spotify/Apple Music/Google Music?

  1. Personalized management of artist’s career (Don’t need a label to launch a lucrative career as a musician)
  2. Altostream digitizes and platformizes “The Chance the Rapper model (Soundcloud growth → world-famous A-list artist)”
  3. Artists earn a far higher percentage of their streaming revenue
  4. Must be better than Spotify, Apple, Youtube, etc.
  5. Artists are paid in an appreciating asset with built-in network effects $ALTO tokens
  6. Encourages early adoption
  7. Encourages community building between artists, curators, and potential managers and record labels

Why use Altostream instead of Spotify/Apple Music/Google Music for the listener?
Better pricing?

  1. Spotify is $9.99 a month for unlimited private or $15.99 for a family of 5. Apple is $9.99 a month for unlimited private or $15.99 for a family of 6.
  2. Altostream beats that value by undercutting them on price early ($7.99 unlimited for a month) and having the $ALTO appreciation deliver long term fat tail growth
  3. Listeners can earn tokens by supporting/growing the Altostream community Curation of music, aka playing DJ
  4. If people subscribe to your playlists you earn a percentage of the streaming token value for each play
  5. Early referrals of friends to Altostream earns you $ALTO tokens via the Popular token “Airdrop” model.

Music: We have implemented an Audio Fingerprint feature using ACRCloud that detects music uploaded and available on the platform, this can help us monitor a bad player trying to get rich from the content of another creative, we also follow up with the DMCA and other applicable laws protecting artists with their crafts, we would be applying for required licenses as we continue to expand.

Grant Details: What is the total $ for the grant application, and what are your proposed milestones?
We would need $15k, this would help us achieve 2 months runway in paying for third-party tools we use, and also hire a mobile dev to help complete our iOS app, which brings us to a public paid launch with 5k listeners and over 10k original song catalog.

1 Like

Do you have any roadmap or milestones for user growth?
Definitely, the most important and hard part is how to attract musicians and listener come to this platform in the very beginning

Yes, we do have a roadmap for onboarding users. We’ve been working on a unique referral system that would enable us to sign up our first 5k users within 1 month of launch. We have begun building a telegram community(Altostream Community), this way we can educate members of the community on how to use Altostream.

1 Like

That is great idea.
I have some question about its technology details. Where are the musics stored? the blockchain or the traditional servers? Do you need still pay money for maintaining the project after it has already launched?

All contents are stored using traditional servers on AWS, we are using the blockchain at the early stage to map song details with the blockchain(Creating a transaction record of each content), and yes we are purchasing credits to keep the servers running. We have a future plan to research in improving Blockchain and Proof of Provenance in distributing and serving contents to users.

Can you specify what conflux specific development the grant will be used for? I.e. what smart contracts will be deployed on Conflux?

Can you specify the budget and deliverable for each milestone? (Please see Development Roadmap:Grant Proposal Application - Template).I would recommend also including KPIs for active users / artists etc in your marketplace.

Are you integrating with other L1s? and if so which ones, and what chain will the $ALTO token be native to?

Thanks!

We are using conflux as the base payment infrastructure which enables Altosream to seamlessly bridge other blockchains using shuttleflow(Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance, Okex, etc). I.e users can make payments into Altostream using shuttle flow. Another reason is because of the sponsor fee available on Conflux, and that’s because most of our users are native web2.0 and it’s quite difficult for them to understand what transaction fees are.

The Token Smart contract will be deployed on conflux.

Milestone 1: Deploy Altostream SmartContract on Conflux Testnet(2 Weeks)
Cost: 3 Developers - $8k, Hosting - $2k

  • Integrate web3 to Interact with smart contract
  • Test Payment Across Bridge
  • Users can use tokens to subscribe to listen to music on Altostream in Hi-Fi
  • Artists get rewards in ALTO and withdraw them across the bridge

Milestone 2: Deploy to Mainnet(2 weeks)
Cost: SmartContract Audit - $5k

  • Iterate tests of milestone 1 and milestone 2.

Number(s) of Signed Up Users and Artists - 497
Number(s) of Uploaded Songs - 500+

We have integrated Altostream with Avalanche. We are switching our Native Tokens to Conflux due to the sponsor fees feature and Shuttle Flow bridge.

2 Likes

Congratulations @altostream, Altostream’s grant application has been approved by the Global Grants Committee!

For reference, below are the voting results:

1 Like

Thank you @Grants_Committee

Hi. Are you launch?