UnitedMasters partners with Coinbase to pay artists in cryptocurrency

UnitedMasters artists can also use Coinbase’s full set of product offerings including spending, earning, trading and borrowing.

The company says that its goal is “to create more financial opportunities, equity and transparency to the dedicated, rising musicians utilising our platform and to level the playing field so that they can stay independent”.

“Working with Coinbase to give independent artists the ability to be paid in crypto is a natural next step for us, using technology to ensure that the economics of the music business favour the creators behind it,” UnitedMasters founder and CEO Steve Stoute said. “As the financial sector continues to evolve and innovate, we’re committed to putting our artists in the best position to benefit from these changes.”

In an interview with CNBC, Stoute said that “payment optionality has been a big thing in this creator economy, and now [artists] are asking to be paid in crypto”.

Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee said: “Coinbase’s mission is to increase economic freedom in the world, and we applaud UnitedMasters efforts to level the playing field for their community of musical artists. We want to make it easy for every company to pay employees in crypto. This is the future of payroll.”

In August, UnitedMasters launched two new financing tools that enable independent artists to get cash advances up to $1m and real-time royalty streaming payouts.

Last year, UnitedMasters launched a new subscription tier called Select, which lets users keep 100% of their royalties. The platform also partnered with TikTok to fully integrate both services directly through the short-form video-streaming app.

Meanwhile, Coinbase has also announced plans to launch its own NFT platform called Coinbase NFT.