This platform brings together fans and creators with a mission to bring equity to music

It can be difficult for musicians and creators to make money off of their art. That’s why Hugo Renaudin and Bassori Grace founded P00LS, a company that brings fans and artists together using community tokens that make it easier for music listeners to directly support their favorite artists! Along with Head of Product, Annie Soderstrom, Hugo and Bassori want to revolutionize the way artists make a living, by getting rid of the middleman and directly connecting them to fans!

Hugo explains that it can be difficult for all but the most popular artists to make a living off of their music. “A lot of artists struggle. The paradigm that we’re in, it’s only the 1% that wins, that leaves that 99% of the world of the creators without the ability to monetize their community and their influence,” Hugo tells In The Know. “This concept of social tokens, to me, was super interesting and when I was starting to think about P00LS, I thought nobody was doing it the right way.”

Hugo and Bassori decided to create P00LS, a platform that allows fans to accrue “social tokens” by completing different challenges. “These challenges can look like a number of things. Everything from taking quizzes about a creator or learning about a creator’s favorite charity,” Annie explains. “The activities have been developed with the creators so that the community that is most engaged and the biggest fans of these creators will win the most tokens.” 

The social tokens will eventually be minted on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing people to exchange, buy, and sell them against other cryptocurrencies, according to Annie. “The creator is able to use social tokens as decentralized cryptocurrency to monetize in ways that are outside of the traditional, not having that middleman of the streaming service or the social media network taking a cut,” Annie explains. “At the same point, the fans, because they’re able to earn these social tokens, and they’re able to have a piece of this creator’s social token pool, are able to monetize on their own as well.”

Hugo believes that financial freedom for artists means moving away from traditional forms of currency. “Money is not the only currency. There are a lot of things that are super valuable today that are not money, are not dollars,” Hugo notes. “Time is valuable, community is valuable, attention is valuable, [and] having influence is valuable. Actually doing something that can capture all this value into an instrument. That’s what a social token is.”

Earning social tokens not only allows fans to show their support for artists, but can also unlock different kinds of prizes. “As soon as I get these tokens after completing challenges, I’m a part of that creator’s community,” Annie explains. “So it unlocks access right away. Blond:ish, you know, has tokens for fans pre-saving songs. Carlita has given fans or token holders backstage packages to some of her engagements.”

Though P00LS is still in development, artists are already benefiting from its social tokens system. DJ Blond:ish says that P00LS helps her feel closer to her fans. “As an artist, you have a certain relationship with your fans, your community,” she explains. “Now, through the token, I’m really excited that I can actually reward [my fans]. I can identify, engage, [and] monetize my super fans. But also they get the reward back, so it becomes that circular loop and that’s what I’m so excited for.”

The entire P00LS team believes that one day, P00LS will change the world. “At some point, everybody will have a social token,” Bassori tells In The Know. “I see P00LS as one of the most influential and impactful platforms in the next 30 to 50 years.”

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