✦Crazy Wisdom

Crazy Wisdom

Episode #489: The Music Maker’s Stack: From Spotify to On-Chain Revenue

Episode #489 · September 15, 2025 · 1h 4m

MP3 · Apple Podcasts · Spotify

About this episode

On this episode of Crazy Wisdom, I, Stewart Alsop, sit down with Sweetman, the developer behind on-chain music and co-founder of Recoup. We talk about how musicians in 2025 are coining their content on Base and Zora, earning through Farcaster collectibles, Sound drops, and live shows, while AI agents are reshaping management, discovery, and creative workflows across music and art. The conversation also stretches into Spotify’s AI push, the “dead internet theory,” synthetic hierarchies, and how creators can avoid future shock by experimenting with new tools. You can follow Sweetman on Twitter, Farcaster, Instagram, and try Recoup at chat.recoupable.com.
Check out this GPT we trained on the conversation
Timestamps
  • 00:00Stewart Alsop introduces Sweetman to talk about on-chain music in 2025.
  • 05:00Coins, Base, Zora, Farcaster, collectibles, Sound, and live shows emerge as key revenue streams for musicians.
  • 10:00Streaming shifts into marketing while AI music quietly fills shops and feeds, sparking talk of the dead internet theory.
  • 15:00Sweetman ties IoT growth and shrinking human birthrates to synthetic consumption, urging builders to plug into AI agents.
  • 20:00Conversation turns to synthetic hierarchies, biological analogies, and defining what an AI agent truly is.
  • 25:00Sweetman demos Recoup: model switching with Vercel AI SDK, Spotify API integration, and building artist knowledge bases.
  • 30:00Tool chains, knowledge storage on Base and Arweave, and expanding into YouTube and TikTok management for labels.
  • 35:00AI elements streamline UI, Sam Altman’s philosophy on building with evolving models sparks a strategy discussion.
  • 40:00Stewart reflects on the return of Renaissance humans, orchestration of machine intelligence, and prediction markets.
  • 45:00Sweetman weighs orchestration trade-offs, cost of Claude vs GPT-5, and boutique services over winner-take-all markets.
  • 50:00Parasocial relationships with models, GPT psychosis, and the emotional shock of AI’s rapid changes.
  • 55:00Future shock explored through Sweetman’s reaction to Cursor, ending with resilience and leaning into experimentation.
Key Insights
  1. On-chain music monetization is diversifying. Sweetman describes how musicians in 2025 use coins, collectibles, and platforms like Base, Zora, Farcaster, and Sound to directly earn from their audiences. Streaming has become more about visibility and marketing, while real revenue comes from tokenized content, auctions, and live shows.
  2. AI agents are replacing traditional managers. By consuming data from APIs like Spotify, Instagram, and TikTok, agents can segment audiences, recommend collaborations, and plan tours. What once cost thousands in management fees is now automated, providing musicians with powerful tools at a fraction of the price.
  3. Platforms are moving to replace artists. Spotify and other major players are experimenting with AI-generated music, effectively cutting human musicians further out of the revenue loop. This shift reinforces the importance of artists leaning into blockchain monetization and building direct relationships with fans.
  4. The “dead internet theory” reframes the future. Sweetman connects IoT expansion and declining birth rates to a world where AI, not humans, will make most online purchases and content. The lesson: build products that are easy for AI agents to buy, consume, and amplify, since they may soon outnumber human users.
  5. Synthetic hierarchies mirror biological ones. Stewart introduces the idea that just as cells operate autonomously within the body, billions of AI agents will increasingly act as intermediaries in human creativity and commerce. This frames AI as part of a broader continuity of hierarchical systems in nature and society.
  6. Recoup showcases orchestration in practice. Sweetman explains how Recoup integrates Vercel AI SDK, Spotify APIs, and multi-model tool chains to build knowledge bases for artists. By storing profiles on Base and Arweave, Recoup not only manages social media but also automates content optimization, giving musicians leverage once reserved for labels.
  7. Future shock is both risk and opportunity. Sweetman shares his initial rejection of AI coding tools as a threat to his identity, only to later embrace them as collaborators. The conversation closes with a call for resilience: experiment with new systems, adapt quickly, and avoid becoming a Luddite in an accelerating digital age.
Episode transcript
Stewart Alsop III00:00

Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. This podcast is for you. If you have an insane drive to find the truth of things, it's not the good answers that we seek, but the good questions. I interview a range of different guests from many different fields, all with the intention to uncover the simple truths that are hidden in plain sight. Most people don't want to go there. I go there, my guests go there, and you benefit. Please let me know if you enjoy these episodes and as always, subscribe on itunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcasts.

Stewart Alsop III00:35

Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. I've got Sweetman, who is the dev for On Chain Music today. We've already done one AI Whisperers event and now I'm very excited to dig in in this one on one session for Crazy Wisdom. Welcome to the show.

Sweetman00:52

Thank you for having me, Stuart.

Stewart Alsop III00:54

So on Chain Music what does On Chain Music look like in 2025? August 2025

Sweetman01:03

the the big meta if you're here and you're a musician right now is coins, the whole bass in Zora pushing coin your content. Most on Chain Musicians they wake up and they post on Farcaster. If they have access to the base app, they're posting on the base app. They're getting paid anywhere between $2 and 25 on both of those platforms just for posting. Wow. Anytime they're posting on there, there's on Farcaster collectibles. So they might be getting paid in those auctions. Or if you're posting on the base app, you're coining your content and then you're earning either directly through the creator fees or you're selling and trading those coins and earning revenue. You're posting your music on Tortoise, which is a mini app, or you're posting on in process or you're posting more coins on sound and you're earning revenue through those. People are still doing live shows. I've been seeing them going down in terms of decentraland and in Metaverse live performances. But a lot of people, especially around here, still do in person shows. And so there's a complement of more traditional get your music on streaming not to earn money but to get visibility and distribution and make it so that AI agents can consume your content and help inform your practice. And then you monetize via coins, you monetize via live shows, you monetize via collectibles, a mix of ERC 721s, 1155s, ERC 20s and then super fans paying you directly through executive production patronage. Those are some Examples.

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