Nina Protocol Will Go Offline in July

Nina Protocol is shutting down. The Web3-based music platform announced on May 28 that it will wind down operations in phases, with the site and app fully offline by July 15. Users have six weeks to export releases, purchases, and earnings. The closure ends a four-year experiment that gave artists direct control over sales and context, but never found a path to financial stability.

Founded in New York in 2021 by Jack Callahan, Mike Pollard, and Eric Farber, Nina let musicians upload music and sell it directly to listeners via blockchain, retaining full ownership and revenue. It wasn’t just a distribution pipe. Artists built custom hubs, labels like Warp, AD 93, Stroom, and Hyperdub operated pages, and an editorial wing ran scene reports, interviews, and curated playlists. The platform drew heavily from Blog Era aesthetics, encouraging people to carve out small, self-defined spaces. In a statement, Nina’s team said the work fostered “meaningful connections” but “we were unable to find a revenue strategy that would give Nina a path to sustainability at its current size.”

Over the years, the platform attracted a quiet but serious following. ML Buch, James K, Purelink, Aya, Ana Roxanne, and Yung Lean all distributed music there. A mobile app launched in 2024, and Nina introduced a revenue-sharing model that added a dollar fee to purchases instead of taking a cut from artists. That fee was split between the platform and users. The model was transparent, but it wasn’t enough.

The shutdown is a stark data point for independent music infrastructure. Nina’s loss will ripple through the niche that trusted it—artists, small labels, and listeners who wanted an alternative to Big Streaming. The final note in the team’s statement asked for continued hope despite “the reality” of the current music economy. The site will remain online for a few more weeks, then it goes dark.