Nina Protocol, Independent Music Platform, Announces July 15 Shutdown

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Independent Music Platform Nina Protocol to Shut Down

The streaming service and marketplace will go “fully offline” by July 15 By Hattie Lindert May 28, 2026 Save this story Save this story

The free, independent music platform Nina Protocol is shutting down. The Web3-based streaming service and marketplace announced today (May 28) that it will “wind down” in phases over the next six weeks, advising users to export their releases and purchases. Both the website and app will be fully offline by July 15.

“We set out to build infrastructure for independent music that allowed musicians to sell their music, create their context, and connect with listeners on their own terms,” Nina’s statement read. “While our work created meaningful connections and helped foster listeners’ love for new music, we were unable to find a revenue strategy that would give Nina a path to sustainability at its current size.”

Founded in New York in 2021 by Jack Callahan, Mike Pollard, and Eric Farber, Nina began as a distribution service, which allowed artists to upload music directly to listeners via the blockchain and retain full ownership of—and sales revenue from—their releases. Built on open-source code, the platform also permitted participating artists to build custom hubs for their catalog. ML Buch, James K, Yung Lean, Purelink, Aya, Ana Roxanne, and many more distributed music through Nina over the years, and imprints including Warp, AD 93, Stroom, and Hyperdub had dedicated label hubs with the platform.

Drawing inspiration from peak Blog Era online publishing, Nina cultivated a diverse editorial arm, sharing scene reports, essays, interviews, and curated playlists from journalists, artists, and fans alike. “We want people to build their own corners here,” editorial lead Cal Hickox told Rolling Stone in 2025. “The dream is that someone starts a little magazine on Nina, writes about their friends’ bands, and that becomes a whole world.”

Nina also hosted an event series, Nina Night, and a podcast, 400 Floor. The platform expanded its services to a mobile app in 2024, and just last year, they introduced a new community revenue sharing model. The program functioned by adding a $1 fee to every purchase instead of taking a cut from an artist’s share; that fee would then be distributed “evenly and transparently,” per Nina’s website , between the platform and its users.

“We are optimistic and look forward to seeing how those who continue to build for independent music will improve our corner of the music world,” Nina’s announcement concluded. “The work of a musician changes with each phase of technology and though the reality seems grim in the age of Big Streaming, we must fight cynicism and continue to hope.”

Read Nina Protocol’s full statement below.

Today, we're sharing the decision that we are winding down Nina Protocol.

The site will be winding down in phases over the next six weeks. You should use this time to withdraw your earnings and export your releases, purchases and connections.

Our goal is to make it easy for you to take your Nina activity with you before the site goes offline. After July 15th the site and app will be fully offline.

We're looking into options to archive Nina Editorial online and will share a link to that once we do.

In 2021, we saw musicians' growing fatigue in the face of streaming's one-size-fits-all payments, context-collapse, and algorithmic discovery. We set out to build infrastructure for independent music that allowed musicians to sell their music, create their context, and connect with listeners on their own terms. Our goal was to release independent music from the grips of Big Streaming, which we felt unfairly tilted outcomes to benefit the major labels.

Over the last five years, we've built new models for:

- Releasing music direct-to-fans - Helping artists contextualize their music - Elevating listeners from the role of passive consumer to active collaborator - Bringing editorial and curation directly into the discovery experience

While our work created meaningful connections and helped foster listeners' love for new music, we were unable to find a revenue strategy that would give Nina a path to sustainability at its current size.

We looked at our options for how to fund the platform and continue working on it, and saw no viable paths forward that would allow us to continue developing, or responsibly maintain Nina the way it runs today.

We are disappointed at this outcome and our inability to get Nina to long-term stability, as this has been a labor of love for the last 5 years, but remain honored to have played a role in supporting and highlighting incredible corners of the music community.

We are immensely grateful to all who supported Nina, released music, listened, supported artists, attended shows, and wrote about music on Nina. Big Streaming has the benefit of convenience, but mostly at the expense of the artists big and small who don't win the attention lottery. We continue to be inspired by platforms like Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Untitled, Subvert, Cantilever, Tidal, Qobuz. Anyone who brings more context to artists and provides direct paths to revenue and fans should be supported. We are optimistic and look forward to seeing how those who continue to build for independent music will improve our corner of the music world. The work of a musician changes with each phase of technology and though the reality seems grim in the age of Big Streaming, we must fight cynicism and continue to hope.

Is There a Fairer Way for Streaming Services to Pay Artists?

_Originally reported by [Pitchfork](https://pitchfork.com/news/independent-music-platform-nina-protocol-to-shut-down/)._