Spotify Testing New Feature Showcasing Artists’ NFT Collections

Music streaming platform Spotify has recently become the latest company to ride the growing NFT wave after it recently introduced a new feature that allows artists to promote their collections on their profiles. Currently, however, only a handful of artists — such as Steve Aoki and the Wombats — as well as select Android users in the United States have access to the feature.

“Spotify is running a test in which it will help a small group of artists promote their existing third-party NFT offerings via their artist profiles,” explained a spokesperson for Spotify. “We routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve artist and fan experiences. Some of those tests end up paving the way for a broader experience and others serve only as an important learning.”

Users who are part of the test will be able to see an NFT gallery upon visiting an artist’s page, which previews a select number of that particular artist’s NFTs paired with the option to enlarge it and see a brief description to learn more about the token. From there, users can then choose to purchase the NFT through an external marketplace such as OpenSea. The platform, however, only presents static images, so users will have to go to another platform to experience the full extent of NFTs that come in the form of GIFs or videos.

Based on earlier reports, Spotify is simply testing the integration of NFTs and it will not collect a commission for any NFT sales that were done through the application. This also forms part of the company’s efforts to further the interaction between artists and their fans, both on and off its platform.

In October 2021, Spotify also partnered with Shopify to allow artists to connect their profiles on both applications enabling fans to purchase merchandise directly on the former’s platform. Spotify’s move to enter the Web3 space was also earlier hinted at in March following the company’s job postings which sought to employ professionals that are familiar with blockchain technology and NFTs.

Sources: TechCrunch, The Verge