Feature about Nina Protocol, a blockchain-based music marketplace, its founding, growth, challenges, and decision to shut down.
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June 10, 2026
Nina/The FADER
Just shy of five years after its initial launch, independent music platform Nina Protocol is shutting down on July 15. Though the project was a lasting holdover from the blockchain and crypto bubble that burst around 2022 (remember those monkeys?), its original premise was full of hope. Founded by independent music veterans Jack Callahan, Eric Farber, and Mike Pollard, the trio rode a wave of indie-circle frustration surrounding monolithic streaming ecosystems and an influx of Web3 venture capital to create the distribution platform.
The platform pitched itself as a grassroots alternative to Spotify and the other oligarchic corporations that have swindled artists and flattened listening habits. In the process it came in with several great features: the ability for fans to purchase and download directly from artists and labels and for artists to keep 100% of their revenue. The platform regularly featured underground and niche music scenes, developing what felt like communities rather than userbases. But in a commercial ecosystem that prefers scale to passion, Nina Protocol simply wasn’t able to rally the wide and quick interest necessary to stay afloat.
“We built this [to] help people share their music for those who might be interested outside of traditional models,” Jack Callahan, one of Nina Protocol’s founders and an experimental DIY musician based in NYC, says. “So many people were able to find community in music. It’s been an incredible experience.”
Even while being swarmed with interest from major players in the tech and music industry, Nina stuck to its original vision of being a platform by independent and experimental musicians, for independent a
