Universal Music Group partners with Curio to make and sell NFTs based on its record labels and artists

What just happened? Big Music is looking to make big bucks with a booming trend. Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced a partnership with leading non-fungible token (NFT) platform Curio to develop officially licensed NFTs based on content from UMG’s record labels and artists.

Curio launched in 2020 and dropped its first NFTs in February 2021. The service allows users to create, mint, market and sell NFTs. To date, Curio has released more than 75,000 NFTs in collaboration with leading music, film and television brands. The company’s co-founder and co-FEO, Ben Arnon, previously worked at UMG.

NFTs have been around since mid-2014 but didn’t really enter the mainstream lexicon until around 2020. In short, they use the blockchain to prove ownership, validity and scarcity of digital assets. NFTs haven’t resonated with many gamers and tech enthusiasts, but there have been some exceptions.

Music fans, digital art enthusiasts and those involved in crypto have seemingly been much more receptive.

In its NFT market report from late last year, Chainalysis found that consumers had spent nearly $27 billion on NFTs in 2021 alone. Some are even spending massive amount of money on single purchases, like a boat for the metaverse or cartoon pictures of apes.

UMG and Curio are already working on the first wave of projects, which is said to include a drop from Capitol Music Group artist Calum Scott due out sometime in March. Additional details will be supplied in the coming weeks, we’re told.

Image credit Elviss Railijs Bitans