Matt Sorum On His New App ‘Artbit,’ Creating A New Space For Artists With Cryptocurrency [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

Matt Sorum, the former Guns N’ Roses drummer, wants his new app Artbit to help young artists trying to make it in the music business.

“We’ve heard what’s been going on in the music business for a long time, right?” Sorum told uInterview exclusively at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. “And as an artist, I feel for young artists and I feel for up and coming and emerging artists because maybe it’s easier to put yourself out there, but it’s also harder in a lot of ways because there’s more noise and there’s more traffic than ever. In the old days, bands or musicians signed to labels and a label would promote your record. Nowadays, you’re promoting yourself in a social media world that’s very cluttered.”

Artbit, which just announced its partnership with the Hashgraph platform Hadera Hashgraph, is an application that will allow the general public to use cryptocurrency when interacting with the art world.

“We’re really excited about this platform,” Sorum said. “We feel it’s a much more user-friendly platform for the general public to come on and get interested in cryptocurrency and the way that a public ledger like this is gonna work online.”

Oscars 2018: Best Dressed Slideshow!

He said Artbit aims to create a real space and community just for artists.

“This isn’t gonna be a cluttered space of people doing wacky stuff on Snapchat,” Sorum said. “This is gonna be pure art. Dancers, musicians, street artists, buskers if you will — people that are just making art. Now when we say monetization, that’s where Artbit, the coin and the crypto come into place.”

Artbit also wants to be the one of first content-based cryptocurrency sites.

“People ask, ‘How is that gonna work?’ Well, you’re gonna get compared Dogecoin or Artbitcoin in your wallet, and you’re gonna be able to go online and have a gamification sort of aspect with that cryptocurrency,” Sorum said. “You’re gonna get involved — doesn’t have to be a lot of money. This isn’t about going on and buying crypto and keeping it in your wallet and hoping that it goes to 20,000 Bitcoin. You’re coming on and the aspect of it is let’s have fun with cryptocurrency, let’s support a community.”

Read uInterviews full, exclusive interview with Sorum below.

How does your new app work?

Matt Sorum: Our new app is called Arbit, and we’re announcing it here at South by Southwest at Atone’s, the famous blue’s bar here in Austin, Texas, and our announcement tomorrow is our partnership with Hashgraph, Hadero, platform, which was announced two days ago in New York City, which is a new public ledger, a distributed ledger, which is different than Blockchain but which works with transferred data the same way. It’s got a much quicker, more expedient way than Blockchain, a safer more secure platform. It’s 250,000 times faster speed. That’s the engine behind Artbit, which, when we partnered with them about two months ago, we waited for their announcement, and now we’re here announcing together. We’re really excited about this platform. We feel it’s a much more user-friendly platform for the general public to come on and get interested in cryptocurrency and the way that a public ledger like this is gonna work online.

Why did you create this app?

MS: We’ve heard what’s been going on in the music business for a long time, right? And as an artist, I feel for young artists and I feel for up-and-coming and emerging artists because maybe it’s easier to put yourself out there, but it’s also harder in a lot of ways because there’s more noise and there’s more traffic than ever. In the old days, bands or musicians signed to labels and a label would promote your record. Nowadays, you’re promoting yourself in a social media world that’s very cluttered.

We want to create a real space and a real community for just artists. This isn’t gonna be a cluttered space of people doing wacky stuff on Snapchat. This is gonna be pure art. Dancers, musicians, street artists, buskers if you will, people that are just making art. Now when we say monetization, that’s where Artbit, the coin and the crypto come into place.

We hope to be one of the first content-based cryptocurrency sites. People ask, ‘How is that gonna work?’ Well, you’re gonna get Artbitcoin in your wallet, and you’re gonna be able to go online and have a gamification sort of aspect with that cryptocurrency. You’re gonna get involved — doesn’t have to be a lot of money. This isn’t about going on and buying crypto and keeping it in your wallet and hoping that it goes to 20,000 Bitcoin. You’re coming on and the aspect of it is let’s have fun with cryptocurrency, let’s support a community.