From Drum & Bass to Web3: My Journey with Nina Protocol

In 2023 I put out Blueroom Tapes, a self-released collection that meant more to me than its track count suggests. It gathered up remastered versions of my early self-releases and a sprinkling of abandoned projects. It was my way of closing the book on the first chapter of my drum and bass journey, one that ran from my first label release with Goldfat Records through to a collaboration with my friend Winslow on his Hospital Records EP.

I released it on Bandcamp, as you do. But I also released it somewhere stranger: Nina Protocol, a decentralised music platform built on the Solana blockchain. This post is about that decision, what it taught me, and an ending I didn't see coming. More on that later.

Why Bother With a Blockchain?

Fair question. The word alone makes half the music community roll their eyes, and honestly, a lot of that scepticism has been earned. Music NFTs arrived wrapped in hype, speculation and some genuinely terrible art.

But I wasn't coming at it cold. I've been into blockchain and web3 tech since 2015, so when Nina Protocol surfaced at roughly the same time I was finishing Blueroom Tapes, trying it out felt like a natural fit rather than a leap. Strip the noise away and there's an idea underneath worth taking seriously: a release that lives somewhere permanent, where the relationship between the artist and the listener is direct rather than mediated by a platform's algorithm or playlist politics.

What Releasing on Nina Was Actually Like

Really simple, is the honest answer. The publishing flow was straightforward, and the release was live without any of the friction I'd half-expected from anything with a blockchain underneath it.

And then, within the first few days, someone bought it. One sale isn't a business model, but there's something different about it. A person chose to support the release directly, with no streaming service sitting in the middle taking its cut and its credit. For an independent artist, that feeling is worth understanding first-hand.

The Ending

Here's the part I didn't plan for: Nina Protocol is shutting down, and by the time you read this it may already have closed its doors. The team emailed registered users to explain the decision.

I'd be lying if I said that didn't sting. It's also the obvious rebuttal to everything I've just written. What good is "permanence" if the platform folds? The theory says the release itself outlives the company, since it lives on-chain rather than on their servers. But what that's worth without a front door for listeners to find it through is a fair question, and I don't think the technology has a convincing answer yet.

What It Taught Me About Web3 and Independent Artists

I'm not going to tell you blockchain is the future of music, because I don't know that, and neither does anyone else selling you certainty. But the experiment did leave me with a few things.

The directness is real. The sale I made on Nina felt categorically different from a thousand streams, and whatever shape this technology ends up taking, that direct artist-to-listener relationship is the part worth keeping.

Platforms are temporary. All of them, web3 or otherwise. The number of places my early releases used to live that no longer exist is exactly why Blueroom Tapes needed remastering in the first place. Nina joining that list proves the rule rather than breaking it.

And experiment small. I tried Nina with a release that mattered to me but didn't carry my livelihood. That's the right size of bet for any new platform.

Final Thoughts

Blueroom Tapes was about closing a chapter, and releasing it on Nina ended up closing another one I didn't know was open. I don't regret it for a second. It cost me nothing but a little time, taught me more about this space than a hundred think-pieces, and someone out there owns a piece of that record in a way streaming will never offer.

If you're an independent artist curious about this stuff, my advice is the same as it was for the X-M5: ignore the noise on both sides. Try it with a release that matters to you but doesn't carry your livelihood, see how it feels, and draw your own conclusions.

The platforms will keep changing. The music is the part that lasts.