Spotify might be moving beyond music to take on NFTs
New job ads posted by the company suggest new pathways into Web3.
Image: Spencer Platt / Getty
Spotify is allegedly diving into the world of NFTs, a move that has the potential to generate additional earnings on the platform.
Yesterday (17 March), The Financial Times reported that the streaming service had posted two job ads online, seeking to hire for “early stage projects related to ‘Web3’”.
According to job descriptions on Spotify’s careers page, the company is looking for a Senior Backend Engineer who will be part of a “small and full-stack team” responsible for “driving growth through new technologies, like Web3”.
On a separate job board, it appears to be recruiting a Senior Manager in Innovation and Market Intelligence. In particular, it’s been specified that candidates should have “expert familiarity with emerging trends, technologies, platforms and ecosystems, especially as it relates to the content, creator, media, web3, and emerging technology industries”.
Spotify’s first venture into crypto technology happened in 2020, when the company backed Facebook’s now-defunct Diem – formerly known as Libra – a blockchain-based stablecoin payment system.
Back in 2019, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek spoke about the potential of blockchain technology on the brand’s own Culture: Now Streaming podcast.
“The most important thing is it will enable paying for things digitally in many of the places around the world where those kind of methods just doesn’t exist. A service like Spotify, you can imagine what would happen by allowing users for instance to be able to pay artists directly,” said Ek at the time.
“That can open up massive opportunities where all of a sudden, a user in Japan might pay a creator in Argentina. And that opens up huge opportunities for how we can further our mission.”
Spotify’s alleged implementation of Web3 technologies could manifest in different ways, from the sale of digital albums and merchandise, to ticketing for live shows. However, these possibilities are still up in the air until Spotify itself announces such ventures.
Unsurprisingly, blockchain technology looks to be making its way to more traditional social media platforms. Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbeg confirmed to the Financial Times that Instagram would be looking into ways to support NFTs on its platform.
