The most amount of feedback and virality I have ever experienced online centered around one article I wrote titled "Top Ten Altcoins that Could 1000x in 2018". While a bit of a clickbait-ish title, the amount of time and energy I put into scrounging for these coins was not absent. All this said, when you come across one project you really, reaaaally like; research becomes a bit of an obsession. This happened to me last night on one project in particular, and I am incredibly excited for the potential ahead. Okay, enough crescendo hype, the coin is called Vezt.
Overview
So, what is Vezt exactly? According to their website, Vezt is a platform that gives artists and rights holders control over their new or existing songs and allows them to easily capitalize on their work by choosing portions of their songs to offer for sale to fans, friends, rights-buyers and brands.
The Bad
On the surface level this seems like a pretty decent idea, but if you take a deeper look, there are many obstacles and weakness that must be overcome.
The Industry
For starters, the music industry has generally been an extremely hard place to make money for startups and investors. Until the recent success of Spotify, if you look into the amount of venture capital pushed into the music space over the last decade, you will see an entire gravesite of failed ideas and nostalgic souls.
Less Tech, More Bass?
Adding onto this, there seems to only be one technical person on the team. While they could have added some support in this area and simply not updated the website, this amount of blockchain and developer expertise is far below the industry average.
Down Goes Frazier
Lastly, you may have heard the term "Don't catch a falling knife". Well Vezt has been a butcher knife, and its rate of falling is faster than Harvey Weinstein's career. The price has absolutely plummeted in the last few months (even more than the market), dropping from its all-time high of $4.22 in January to $0.20 today.
The Potential
There are very special times in a coin's hype cycle of growth that you can capitalize. For my completely made-up but somewhat believable stat of the day:
20% of the market are early adopters and receive 80% the rewards.
20% of those early adopters receive 80% of those rewards.
If you want to know where we are with Vezt, I believe we are in the 20% of the 20%.
Connecting the dots on potential break-outs is one of the most fun, but hardest things to do. While its great to read news articles on Reddit and Steemit to stay up to date, doing the research yourself is an incredibly rewarding experience; both emotionally and financially. Here are some signals I have gathered in my delusional rabbit-hole of emotions.
Major Artists on Board
The only other music company in the crypto space I have put a small investment in is Opus. While it does have some potential, there doesn't seem to be any major or famous artists/producers on-board. In an industry that is completely reliant on influencers and following, Vezt is off to an amazing start.
Nipsey Hussle -
Artist // 700k+ Twitter Followers
Andreas Carlsson - Producer // 150M Records Sold with Celine Dion, Katy Perry, Backstreet Boys
Calm Before the Storm
At time of writing, Vezt is not listed on any major exchanges. While some may think of this as a negative, as a personal investment strategy of mine, I love getting in on coins before they hit the big markets. Although still hovering around $0.20, there has been some intriguing volume increase in the last few days, despite a bear market.
New Updates and Events
A few days ago, Vezt made a community update with some news on recent achievements and up-coming awesomeness.
Locked in a venue at SXSW for March 13th. For those not familiar, South by Southwest is an annual event where film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences come together in Austin, Texas. Many tech companies like Twitter got their start at SXSW.
Trinidad James, The “All Gold Everything” icon, joins the team as an artist and brand ambassador. Trinidad has nearly half a million followers on Instagram.
Vezt co-founders Steve Stewart and Robert Menendez were featured in in a podcast called We Are LA Tech. I was able to listen to the entire interview where they really broke down the vision and mission of Vezt, both inside and outside the music industry. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/2sfQrEo
Gary Vaynerchuck Consipiracy
This picture could mean nothing, or it could mean everything. Probably the former, but everything Gary Vee touches seems to turn into gold. Buy the rumors, sell the news, right?
Gary Vaynerchuck is the founder of Vayner Media and a social media tycoon. He has publicly admitted to his investments in cryptocurrencies in the past and has built a solid foundation of followers through interviews and [connection with those in the music industry](
Drake, Kanye, John Legend
How do you jumpstart a platform to get users and artists onto the app? The classic chicken or the egg problem; you can't have one without the other. To counter this, Vezt has acquired rights to songs by Kanye West, Drake, John Legend and many more, already. If this doesn't get people into the ecosystem, I don't know what will.
Big Picture
If Vezt were to stay within the music industry forever, I still think there is incredible upside. But, if you dive just one layer deeper, you will see an absolute monster. Vezt, some urban dictionary level jargon for 'In-vest-ing', is not tied to the music industry. This is crucial to understand.
Vezt isn't selling music, they are selling the intellectual property and ownership of items. To start, they are focusing on the music industry by allowing artists and publishers to release an "Initial Song Offering". The first time I heard this term, I about rolled my eyes out of socket. The over-hyped and scam-filled ICO (Initial Coin Offering) industry has really put a bad taste in my mouth for all those who connect to this term. That being said, the complex, middle-man dependent, overly complicated, disorganized world of song ownership is the perfect application for blockchain technology. Transparency and efficiency can be the cure of not only music, but many industries with similar headaches.
The Team
As mentioned before, the team is really lacking some technical members and foundation. While I really hope they bolster this in the coming months, I do think many companies have swung the obsession of tech-first teams too far. The fact that cryptocurrencies have become a largely speculative investment, many times basic business principles and concepts are thrown out the door. I am excited for the tech that the Cardanos and IOTAs of the world are promising, but without a true business model to bring in revenue, tech is pointless. I believe if Vezt can find a balance of tech with business acumen, overcoming this hurdle is possible.
The Founders
Steve Stewart, the CEO, has more than 25 years of professional experience in the music, and new media industries. As CEO of Steve Stewart Management, he negotiated and secured lucrative major label record and publishing contracts on behalf of approximately 20 recording artists with companies such as Sony Music, Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic Records, Capitol Records, Disney’s Hollywood Records, A&M Records, Geffen Records, Elektra Records, American Records, Maverick Records, EMI Music Publishing, Famous Music Publishing, Rondor Music, Warner Chappell Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing.
Robert Menedez, the CFO, co-founded crowdcasting app SURKUS, currently valued at $30M. Additionally, he managed all facets of operations at Newmax Advisors, LLC, where he successfully created fiscal synergy for investors by coordinating algorithmic trading teams primarily made of programmers and developers managing account platforms.
Team Members
Conclusion
While this article was largely positive, Vezt has a lot to prove and a lot to grow. With the music industry experience, influencer backing, and a booming cryptocurrency market at its feet, they are off to a good start. If they can truly harness the power of blockchain technology to connect artists and right-holders directly with their fans, I see this project being the most under-the-radar ventures of 2018.
I hope you found some value in this article.
Here are a list of some other Steemit exclusive crypto articles:
Lisk: Don't let the name fool you
Substratum: Net Neutrality's Backup Ninja
Opus: Decentralized SoundCloud
UTRUST: The Paypal of the blockchain era
More About Me
Awesome post Zachary! I had totally overlooked the Gary Vaynerchuck Consipiracy, so great analysis.
I also take a deep dive into Vezt, also sharing your views: https://steemit.com/vezt/@mranders/lqv5u227
Thats a pretty big spike there in January, is that right when tokens were released? I have yet to branch out from any of the big exchanges, someday I say.
Also mentioned your telegram channell in my latest post, but I just looked and seem you are not going to continue and instead will exclusively be in Steemit?
Awesome article. Very well done sir