🌟 Meet The Team: TommyD 🌟

After recently celebrating TokenTraxx’s 3rd birthday, we’re thrilled to launch our “Meet The Team” series. Every week, we’ll be introducing a different team member. To start off, we present our originator, co-founder, and creative visionary, TommyD.

TommyD — Originator, co-founder, and creative vision for TokenTraxx

1. What are your main responsibilities in TokenTraxx’s current projects?

I’m a music producer, songwriter, artist, and DJ and have been in the music industry for 30 plus years. I fell into crypto in 2015. I founded TokenTraxx as I feel I’m well placed to be at the cutting edge of this exciting new tech as I understand both the music industry and Web3. My day job is being the creative director. This means that I try and keep the company true to my initial vision of decentralization and how emerging web3 technology can improve and benefit the creative industries by cutting down on the middlemen. I also travel the world promoting web3 at conferences, etc. and through that process meet a lot of artists and companies that have ended up as our customers.

2. How did you get started with web3 and music?

I have my own whisky company, 8O8. I was looking at trying to do different things around whisky membership and someone suggested a check out Blockchain and specifically Ethereum with smart contracts. That was in 2015 and I fell down the rabbit hole and particularly fell in love with the concepts of decentralization. The globalization of the world means more and more power is in the hands of less and less people. Web3 technology offers alternatives so at least there can be balance.

3. What excites you most about the convergence of blockchain technology and the creative industry?

The music business is not fit for purpose in that it grossly undervalues its core product, music. It’s not one thing, the whole system is a mess, decades of antiquated business practices culminating in a very simple concept that professional musicians are not paid enough due to the fact the system doesn’t generate enough. Web3 technology offers the opportunity for artists and fans to work closer together to support each other. The most exciting thing is feeling like we are at the start of a new world and helping to set precedents that the creative industries could use for a long time.

4. Can you share a challenging aspect of working with web3 technologies in music and the wider creative industries and how you address it?

Tech innovations are always initially perceived as scary because on the whole human nature prefers stability and tech always ushers in change. Everything from cars, radio, bicycles, teddy bears, even recorded music was initially met with scorn, derision and fear but in time have become standards that most of us could not do without. It’s a process of adoption. I’m reminded of the Ghandi quote “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” I would say with Web3 we’re at the laughing and fighting stage but some Web3 innovations like AI are very much winning. People haven’t realised yet how important Blockchains, tokenization and NFTs are to AI. But they will.

5. What advice would you give to someone looking to enter the web3 space?

Experiment. There is no right and wrong so just try things out. If you’re an artist do an innovative drop with TokenTraxx and see how your fans react. If you’re a music company, look at tokenizing a portion of your income and sharing it with your employees or a wider community. Explore IP ownership through tokenization, or launch a simple meme coin to foster greater community spirit. There’s so many options, don’t just follow the herd, understand the tech and then innovate. This was reflected in all the drops we do at TokenTraxx where no two are the same. Check out my generative music and art project ‘TraxxStemz’ as a great example of this. TokenTraxx can help you do all of this and much more. Get creative!!

6. If you could change one thing about the web3 tech landscape today, what would it be and why?

I think we need to separate cryptocurrencies from the benefits of blockchains. Putting a monetary value on a real world experience that’s pegged to a volatile asset like BTC or ETH diminishes that real world experience. We need to find a way around that because there are so many other benefits to crypto. What TokenTraxx does through its membership, creating points that work internally, with rewards paid through our TRAXX token on-chain, is the way forward.

Join us in this exciting adventure, and don’t miss next week’s “Meet The Team” spotlight!

Curious to learn more about TommyD’s path and Web3 innovation?

[Click here to dive into TommyD’s world].