Portugal. The Man Launches Cryptocurrency... And Not Just For Kicks

As COVID continues to cancel lucrative concert tours, musicians are struggling to find new ways to turn their fans’ adoration into sweet, sweet cash. One solution? Cryptocurrency.

Grammy Award-winning Portugal. The Man—likely known best for its hit single "Feel It Still"—is the latest band to jump on the crypto wagon. 

Today, Portugal, The Man launched their very own cryptocurrencycryptocurrency. Those who buy their tokenstokens, called PTM coins, can spend them on merch, unreleased footage from the band’s gigs, a livestream party, and video and text chats with the band. 

“We’ve always favored direct connections with our audiences,” said John Gourley, the lead singer of the rock band, which formed in 2004 in Portland, Oregon.

“COVID has taken a lot of this interaction online, so we’ve been looking for new ways to engage with our audience in entirely digital settings. Crypto gives us the opportunity to do just that.”

The tokens are launching on Rally, a social token network built on an Ethereum sidechainsidechain. Fans can use the tokens through social media app Discord. 

DeFi Yield Farming Meets Social Tokens on Rally

Rally, a social money platform, today introduced a governance token that its community can use to decide to vote on the next influencer who’s allowed to create a cryptocurrency in their own name. It’s also possible to “yield-farm” the token—and earn high interest on it.  “We’re tokenizing people,” says Kevin Chou, the founder of Rally, as though that’s the most normal thing in the world. He brings to the project 15 years of experience in the video game industry.  From 2006 to 2017, Chou ran Kab...

Rally is different from other social token networks, such as Roll and Fyooz, in a few key respects. 

Although Rally is built on an EthereumEthereum sidechain, which means that some of the transactions don’t require validation from the Ethereum blockchainblockchain, Rally is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization, or a DAODAO. 

This means that big bag holders can vote on who is allowed to mint a social token and boot out anyone it doesn’t like. 

By contrast, Roll and Fyooz, its main competitors, take a centralized approach and onboard clients one-by-one. Fyooz paid for rapper Lil Yachty to mint Yachty Token, for instance. 

Rap and Crypto: Why Lil Yachty Launched YachtyCoin

Last month, out of nowhere, the rapper Lil Yachty announced his formal entry into the world of cryptocurrency. “My lawyer is making me disclose that I’m being paid,” he wrote, dropping in a “shrug” emoji before telling fans that something called “YachtyCoin” was coming soon. It might strike you as odd, coming from an artist who’s worked with the likes of Drake and Migos, and spent the past four years establishing a reputation as a sort of carefree goofball (he dubbed himself “King of the Teens,”...

Second, while Roll and Fyooz offer ERC-20 tokens, whose value is determined by any secondary markets that list them, the price of Rally’s tokens are tied to an algorithm. 

The more coins in circulation, the more expensive it is to buy the coin. Coins are destroyed whenever anyone cashes them in to buy something; the price of the coins thus reflects the liquidityliquidity of the market. At launch, they'll cost about $1. 

Gourley said that the band chose Rally upon the recommendation of its fans. 

Portugal, The Man inherited 50,000 tokens upon starting the project, which are “designed to be held long-term,” Mahesh Vellanki, Co-Founder of Rally, told Decrypt. 

Gourley said he is “excited about new revenue possibilities,” but his intention isn’t “to make a quick buck.” 

Gourley is “mostly excited about the new ground that we are breaking—and the fact that we get to bring our fans along for the ride.” 

If all goes well, Gourley and his fellow band members could sell those tokens for a profit. They could also “gain the ability to draw a steady income stream,” said Vellanki.

So could his fans. Gourley said the band has “gifted thousands of coins to some of our longest supporters already and will continue to do so.”