Latest Music Act to Launch a Social Token: Portugal. The Man

The band behind that “rebel just for kicks” song is doing a social token with Rally.

Portugal. The Man joins Christian vocal trio Selah on Rally’s “Creator Coin” platform. Competing platform Fyooz has also made headlines in recent weeks with the addition of tokens from rappers Lil Yachty and Lil Pump.

The Portland rock band’s ptm coin represents the latest effort to tokenize fan engagement. Bands who can’t tour due to COVID-19 restrictions are turning to a crop of crypto startups to offer exclusive perks to fans willing to fork over fiat in support of their favorite artists.

“We want some kind of special level for our really hardcore fans,” bass player Zach Carothers told CoinDesk in an interview. “Since about 2017 we’ve been looking into something like this and just toying with the idea. And I think this forced downtime that we’ve been having has kind of given us the time to explore other options.”

Benefits include the launch of an audio archive for token holders featuring unreleased music as well as the ability to tune into exclusive live-streams. The band has also spun up a Discord server with over 1,100 users where much of the token activity will occur. The token goes live today, starting around $1 and fluctuating "based on the bonding curve and market demand following launch," Rally co-founder Mahesh Vellanki said in a message.

"By giving these tokens to all their fans … they now have a vested interest in making the community even more successful, because they have a little bit of skin in the game, right?" Vellanki said in an interview. "That is kind of the beauty of this whole thing."