Essay · July 31, 2025 · 24:23
CoopahTroopa: Music NFTs, Crypto Artists, Creator Coins, and More | TG Podcast
The Signal
CoopahTroopa is rebuilding Coop Records around a simple question: if songs had market caps, could fans prove they discovered them early? After two years and 850 collectible releases, the label has pivoted to song coins — a potentially faster income path for artists, but one constrained by rights clearance, crypto's reputation, weak links between real-world success and token value, and the unresolved question of what holders actually own.
Key Takeaways
- 01
Songs become live markets
With artist and rights-holder approval, Coop Records creates a wallet and launches a song through a Uniswap v3 pool powered by Doppler. Markets begin around a $5,000 capitalization and trade with attention.
- 02
Artist trust is the bottleneck
Artists readily understand collectibles priced at $1, but fear fans losing money on coins and the blowback that follows. Coop therefore handles launches closely and avoids encouraging artists to market tokens directly to Instagram fans.
- 03
The income can beat streaming
One coin generated an estimated $25,000–$50,000 in fees, comparable to 5–10 million streams, plus 5% of supply for the artist. Dozens of artists have earned five to ten times more from Coop collectibles than from streaming.
- 04
Ownership remains missing
Today's coins confer no claim on masters, publishing, or streaming revenue. That makes launches additive and legally simpler for artists, but deprives holders of a clear financial link to a song's success.
- 05
The emerging artist matters most
Coopah is less interested in celebrity one-offs than becoming the place where the next Post Malone releases early work. The roster focuses on artists beginning tours and festivals who may become much larger over three to five years.
On the Record
“If songs had a market cap, what would that look like? If you want to prove that you're early to a song, you want to buy into it.”
“Artists are terrified of the idea of their fans losing money trading their coins.”
“I genuinely believe that there should be real-time markets for music.”
“If you've ever found a song early and wanted to prove that you were early to it, we have a platform to do that.”
The Breakdown
From record label to song exchange
Coop Records began two years earlier with limited-edition releases on Sound.xyz, then built its own collectible protocol. As the market shifted from NFTs toward coins, the company rebuilt around tradable song markets. Six early coins produced roughly $3–4 million of volume, while the older catalog holds about 850 songs from 200 artists.
Rights clearance before the pool
A song cannot simply be copied onto the platform. Coop obtains the artist's files and split information, plus approval from labels or distributors where necessary, then creates the artist wallet and market. Doppler supplies liquidity infrastructure for a Uniswap v3 pool beginning around a $5,000 market cap. The complexity of music ownership makes expansion slower than a permissionless memecoin launch.
Why artists hesitate
The original collectible model is easy to defend: 5,000 editions at one dollar, a download, and label loyalty points. Coins introduce price volatility, gambling language, and the possibility that fans lose money. Artists are often open to the experiment but remember crypto scams and want protection from reputational damage, so Coop curates launches and does not push them toward mainstream followers.
Twenty-five thousand dollars versus millions of streams
The first song coin reached a cited $2–3 million market cap and generated an estimated $25,000–$50,000 in trading fees — roughly the streaming income from 5–10 million plays — while the artist also received 5% of supply. A later remix with 400 million Spotify streams peaked at only $500,000–$600,000, revealing the core inefficiency: crypto traders may not know music, music fans avoid crypto, and token value does not yet track listening.
Closing the value loop
Coop wants markets to display daily streams and TikTok usage, and to reward existing fan behavior such as pre-saving a song or creating a TikTok sound. The larger missing piece is ownership. Coins currently provide no streaming revenue, publishing rights, or masters; that makes them easy additive income for artists, but holders want a credible claim on future upside. Revenue-sharing could create a stronger flywheel, though the conversation acknowledges the securities problem.
Why music NFTs failed
Coopah says the category was promoted far beyond its real-world impact. Too few genuinely popular artists participated, markets were inefficient, and most collectibles offered little valuable access or ownership. He accepts his own role in overselling the “future of music” narrative. The underlying vision has not changed, but the reset requires better artists, usable products, and gradual markets that do not get sniped before a song has time to grow.
The SoundCloud playbook
A Snoop Dogg or Steve Aoki launch could draw attention, but Coopah wants emerging artists who release on the platform before they become household names. SoundCloud mattered because artists such as Post Malone put early songs there; Coop Records aims to make that discovery investable. Existing catalog from ODESZA, Zeds Dead, San Holo, Barry Can't Swim, and Disco Lines provides recognizable material while the new roster develops.
Zora's wider creator-coin flywheel
Coopah connects song coins to Zora creator coins and the Base app, where profiles and posts can become coins by default. A Farcaster following carries into Base, Zora provides markets underneath, mini-apps and XMTP add utility, and Coinbase can subsidize onboarding. He believes Zora has reduced the psychological hurdle more than previous systems: users can simply ask whether a creator will become more popular, while content-coin activity can flow back toward the creator and platform coins.
Distilled from the episode transcript · Counterparty Recap Desk
