Quick take:
- Royal’s NFT platform crashed after Grammy award-winning rapper Nas’ NFT drop.
- Mint of the NFT is now delayed.
- The music NFT collection features two of Nas’ tracks.
NFT music platform Royal, launched by American 3LAU, crashed yesterday after dropping its first NFT music collection by American rapper Nas. After the crash, Royal tweeted that users “broke its servers”, alluding to heightened demand.
The hype is too real, you guys broke our servers! 😂 We know the site went down and we'll be back up at 1:30PM ET!
— royal (@join_royal) January 11, 2022
Currently running in beta, the platform closed a $55 million Series A funding round on November 22, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation by Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, electronic duo The Chainsmokers, and Nas.
The mint date of the NFT drop has now been delayed to January 20. The collection features two of Nas’ tracks ‘Ultra Black’ and ‘Rare’, and both will be dropped at 1pm ET and 9pm ET respectively.
UPDATE: New date for the @Nas drop — Thurs, Jan 20. Same times, same place.
— royal (@join_royal) January 11, 2022
Ultra Black at 1pm ET. Rare at 9pm ET.
Thank you for your patience. The excitement is real. We appreciate you.💎
Though some buyers have managed to grab the NFT, other users have expressed displeasure at losing their chance at the opportunity, urging the platform to restart the drop with all 760 tokens for ‘Ultra Black’.
Have some gone then? Seems unfair. Can't we start again with all 760 so its fair for everyone? pic.twitter.com/iHWQAgxklv
— thomaswnorton (@thomaswnorton) January 11, 2022
The two tracks, ‘Ultra Black’ and ‘Rare’ are taken from his Grammy award-winning albums King’s Disease and King’s Disease II, originally released via Nas’s independent label Mass Appeal. Nas will retain 50% of royalties from every token sold.
Purchase of the music NFT gives buyers partial ownership of the songs’ streaming royalties separated into Gold, Platinum and Diamond tiers.
Holders of the 500 $50 Gold tokens will receive 0.0143% of royalties and access to Hip Hop 50 Discord while holders of the 250 $250 Platinum token holders will receive 0.0857% and exclusive merch. The 10 holders of the Diamond tokens, each costing $4,999 will receive 2.1400% royalties along with two VIP concert tickets, a signed vinyl, a video conversation with American record producer Hit-Boy, as well as all Gold and Platinum perks.
Royal’s NFT collection is not the first project to hit a snag on the drop date. Monkey-themed play-to-earn soccer game, MonkeyBall had a chaotic NFT drop after buyers complained they didn’t receive their NFTs due to congestion on its network, Solana.
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