Crypto Night at the Grammys

From Binance to OneOf to Profile Picture (PFP) NFTs, we’ve felt crypto’s presence at the music industry’s biggest events.

South African comedian and TV host Trevor Noah, who once again served as host of the 64th Grammy Awards, said in his opening speech: "We are in Las Vegas, just like cryptocurrency is a city."

The crypto meme (one of Noah’s two jokes of the night) was far from the industry’s only cameo, and from sponsored events to galas to non-fungible token (NFT) meetups, crypto once again found itself intertwined with mainstream entertainment.

Two crypto partnerships dominated the weekend’s festivities, one with crypto exchange Binance and the other from music NFT platform OneOf, which runs on the Tezos blockchain.

OneOf’s rise to fame over the weekend is part of the platform’s three-year partnership signed with the Recording Academy in November, which has seen high-profile artists and award-winners, such as Doja Cat and HER, release collections on OneOf.

Binance kept a low profile over the weekend (aside from the official gala), but a spokesperson hinted that “larger partnership plans” would be announced soon.

Grammy NFT

Every mainstream artist seems to be experimenting with NFTs these days

At a pool party outside the MGM Grand, Steve Aoki, crowned the “Prince of Web 3 DJs,” performed passionately as the big screen flashed the promotional slogan of his NFT membership club “A0K1VERSE.”

One onlooker said: “Steve Aoki is actually the reason I got into NFTs”;

Another fan shouted: "AOKIVEEEEEERSE!"

Across the street was a meetup for OnChainMonkey, an NFT project that helps its holders host events throughout the weekend, including a pool party and dining at the Bellagio hotel.

“We weren’t actually even planning on coming to Vegas this weekend, but two days ago I checked Discord and saw it was happening,” OnChainMonkey NFT holder Bryan Hernandez told CoinDesk. “For a second I wasn’t sure, but then I saw brunch was included and 10 minutes later I had my hotel booked.”

During the Grammys telecast, where Noah demoed an NFT (which was much better than his opening performance in Las Vegas), he quipped, “You know it’s hard when your favorite artist goes from trying to sell you music to promoting pictures of digital monkeys.”

The joke, of course, was an allusion to the Bored Ape Yacht NFT collection and its rise to media stardom, and once the joke was over, the camera turned to Justin Bieber, who purchased an NFT from the collection in February.

“Entertainment’s Newest Asset Class”

Record labels and talent agencies are scrambling to engage their clients in the increasingly popular and mainstream form of digital assets, and many of them are experimenting with the technology.

“People often think of cryptocurrency as a new asset class, and NFTs are the newest asset class in the entertainment industry,” a lawyer representing the popular NFT project Doodles said at the Grammys.

Ahead of the evening, there was no shortage of artists eager to talk about their upcoming NFT releases, one of whom was rapper Gerald Gillum, also known as G-Eazy, who will announce his first collaborative collection with OneOf later this month.

“It’s really about curiosity and finding new ways to engage with fans,” he told CoinDesk in an interview. Compared to other promotions, he said working on NFTs feels like “a more creative process,” adding, “I’m excited to come up with concepts for artwork.”