Arden Jones is a musician who works for Atlantic Records. He wants to pay off the parking tickets of people he doesn’t know. He is selling Ethereum NFTs of his hit song to raise money for this project.
The 21-year-old singer-song songwriter’s “Parallel Parking,” which has been played nearly 25 million times on services like Spotify and Apple Music, was just released on the music NFT platform Sound.xyz to help Jones’ “Parallel Parking Fund.”
How to use these tickets
Fans can send in their unpaid parking tickets through Twitter or Instagram. The money from the sale of NFTs will go into a community wallet and be used to pay off as many unpaid tickets as possible.
parallel parking came out exactly two years ago today
— Arden Jones (@ArdenJones_) January 21, 2023
dropping on @soundxyz_ today to celebrate + all the funds will go towards paying off peoples’ parking tickets !!https://t.co/GBSjQZGvSl pic.twitter.com/Z4t3UdOj2g
Collectors can buy the NFT of the song through Sound.xyz for 0.05 ETH, which is about $80, and put that money into the fund. The NFT release comes at the same time as the two-year anniversary of the song’s first release, which made the artist famous and led to a major record label signing them.
“A lot of parking tickets (especially in Los Angeles) are given out unnecessarily and excessively,” Jones wrote in an email. “I also feel that so many ‘No Parking’ signs in L.A. are purposefully confusing and are set up to make money, not to restrict parking where it’s necessary.”
parallel parking fund
— Arden Jones (@ArdenJones_) January 23, 2023pic.twitter.com/NSrlJVMcvD
Before the drop ended this afternoon, only 18 of the 100 Parallel Parking NFTs that were available had been bought for a total of 0.90 ETH, or about $1,440. Even though sales of just under 1 ETH are not a big deal in the world of cryptocurrencies, they could be used to pay off a few parking tickets and link Web3 to a fun promotion that fans and followers will enjoy.
Sound.xyz, top music NFT platform
Sound.xyz is one of the platforms that is growing in the new music NFT market. It gives artists a way to connect directly with their fans and gives collectors a chance to share in their own success by buying an asset whose value and demand could go up.
The platform has hosted releases from artists like Snoop Dogg, RAC, and Pussy Riot. In 2021, venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz led a round that raised $5 million for the platform.
Jones has made tour merch with a chip from IYK, a startup that uses NFTs to verify the authenticity of physical items. Jones had been interested in Web3 for a while before this release. He said that tapping a phone to the chip in the item gives the owner access to an NFT and music that hasn’t been released yet. Jones has given out NFT artwork that went with a music release before.
Cooper Turley, a collector and investor in music NFTs who bought “Parallel Parking” NFTs, said that it was “rare to find someone breaking on traditional platforms spending the time to cultivate their Web3 strategy.” Turley also has money invested in Sound. xyz.
“I know that not all of my fans are familiar with the Web3 space,” Jones said of his moves, “so I want to make it as easy to access as possible.”
