Fan Clubs
A Fan Club is a community on Audius for an artist's biggest fans, powered by an artist coin the artist creates. Verified artists can launch one to reward their fans, build community, and earn directly from the people who love their music most.
For wallet basics and how to add or withdraw funds, see the Wallet Guide. To launch one, see How to Launch a Fan Club.
Holders vs. Members
These are two different things, and the difference matters:
- Holders are anyone holding the artist coin in any wallet, anywhere. They might never have used Audius.
- Members are holders who are also on Audius. They're the ones who can join the community here, get exclusive content, and receive Message Blasts from the artist.
When you buy an artist coin and have it in your Audius wallet, you become a member of that artist's Fan Club.
Total Supply & Tokenomics
All artist coins on Audius have a total supply of 1,000,000,000 coins.
500,000,000 (50%): Reserved for the artist (creator of the Fan Club).
250,000,000 (25%): Sold in the bonding curve to reach graduation.
200,000,000 (20%): Entirely for the market to allow liquid trading. Moves to DAMMv2 liquidity.
50,000,000 (5%): Initial supply in the artist's reward pool.
Initial Market Cap: 10,000 $AUDIO
Graduation Market Cap: 1,000,000 $AUDIO
Bonding Curve
Artist coins launch through a process known as a bonding curve, a common distribution mechanism for crypto coins that ensures a fair launch for everybody, prevents pre-allocation to insiders, and simultaneously raises liquidity to support more trading.
In the early stages of a coin's launch, the bonding curve uses mathematical formulas to help control the price of the coin for your earliest fans and buyers. If the coin reaches enough momentum, it "graduates" from the bonding curve formulas and enters the open market. Not all coins graduate.
For most fans, the differences between the bonding curve and the open market are imperceptible in daily practice. Anybody can buy from, and sell into, the bonding curve at any time. When fans buy the coin, the price goes up. When fans sell the coin, the price goes down.
Bonding Curve Technical Details
Initial Market Cap: The starting value of the coin at launch, based on the initial price and supply. These values are the same for all artist coins.
Graduation Market Cap: The market cap a coin must reach in order to graduate into the open market. These values are the same for all artist coins.
$AUDIO as a Liquidity Pair
To support efficient and sustainable trading, the native $AUDIO token is used as a liquidity pair for artist coins behind the scenes. This is why certain bonding curve parameters are defined with both $AUDIO and USD values.
This detail is inconsequential for most fans. Everybody can buy an artist coin with any cryptocurrency supported on Audius, like USDC, $AUDIO, or even other artist coins.
First Buy
This optional step lets the artist make the very first purchase of their own coin in the same crypto transaction as the coin's creation, before any external buyer. The artist can always buy (and sell) more later.
The First Buy requires $AUDIO in the artist's external wallet. If interested, click "Buy $AUDIO" during launch to acquire some without losing your Launchpad progress. Future buys can use any cryptocurrency supported on Audius.
Unlocking
The artist (creator) of a Fan Club owns 50% of the artist coin supply upfront (500,000,000 coins). To keep the market fair, these coins are unlocked daily over a 5-year period. Artists can claim their unlocked coins every day, or let them accumulate and claim on their own schedule.
Artist Earnings
When an artist coin is bought or sold, a 1% trading fee is collected on every trade. 50% of those fees are delivered to the artist (as $AUDIO), and the remaining 50% is used to fund $AUDIO buybacks for the Audius Community Treasury.