Decentralised streaming service Audius has big plans for its own-brand $AUDIO tokens: it wants to use them as rewards for both artists and fans using its platform.

The company unveiled the next stage in those plans yesterday with the launch of $AUDIO Rewards, which will dish out these coins when artists and fans do certain actions or reach specific milestones on Audius. Cheat Codes, Aluna, RAC and Alina Baraz are among the artists already signed up to the program.

This is all part of a longer-term shift for Audius from the Ethereum blockchain to the Solana blockchain, which it sees as more suitable for this kind of program. “$AUDIO Rewards is not monetisation, but it is one of the first big steps towards progressive monetisation on Audius in 2022,” said chief product officer Forrest Browning. “This migration to Solana is laying the groundwork to eventual micropayments and actual monetisation in the future”.

In the meantime, people will be able to use their coins to propose and vote on new features and upgrades for Audius, which says it now has six million monthly users.