By: Jillian Godsil
Alex Nahai, co-founder and CEO of DancingSeahorse.com, has a long music career, working with some of the most prominent artists and companies in the industry.
He speaks fondly of times where he was backstage at some of the biggest names in the business including Prince and Calvin Harris and attending events at Coachella.
“Each time, the energy was amazing and I felt so privileged to be present,” he recalls.
“I really wanted to be able to share that feeling with other fans.”
With 20 years in showbusiness, Nahai became involved in Web 3 about 18 months ago. He had witnessed the rise of NFTs and the growth of utility in NFTs, and with his partner Andy Nematalla, felt there was an opportunity to use NFTs in the music business.
“As NFTs grew in utility, we could see a way of providing relationships between fans and artists, giving the fans access to events and experiences,” he explained.
“We certainly felt we had the access to the top names in the music business to make this work.”
Nahai originally got involved in the music business as a producer at the tender age of 17. His passion for music was shared with his passion for emerging technology.
“From an early age I could see that the music business needed to innovate and become digitised as in other industries. I segued into a law degree and returned to my first love, music, this time as an agent.”
Soon he was working on a sister company to Dancing Seahorse called Streamlive which involved music and live streaming. And it was there, working with names such as Rick Ross, Bella Thorne, Iggy Azalea, Migos, and Juice Wrld (RIP), that the idea of an NFT project began to germinate.
Nahai and the founding team decided to partner with the leading NFT agency in Europe – nftie – and Dancing Seahorse was born. Nahai was motivated by a combination of disruption and innovation.
“Every time there is innovation, you are going to get disruption. I had the privilege of enjoying backstage and other intimate moments with great artists and I wanted to find a way of providing that to fans.”
The Dancing Seahorse club is a brick-and-mortar premises in LA which was previously called Sabotage. A tiny venue only capable of holding up to 200 people, Nahai was booking top tier, multi-platinum artists and marvelled at the close interaction between fans and artists in such intimate settings.
“We decided to turn the venue into a membership-based establishment where token holders could enjoy these intimate shows and we renamed it the Dancing Seahorse Club.”
The name was taken from the unique seahorse fins, each of which is unique to every seahorse, as each NFT is unique to its holder.
While the club in LA is the first physical venue owned by Dancing Seahorse, the team have plans to activate similar spaces at concerts for big names such as Post Malone and Bad Bunny in LA and with other Triple A artists internationally.
“We are in discussions with two of the largest concert promoters in the world to become partners in this project. We are also planning some major concerts in LA, using the original sister company Stream Live.
“And we’re in advanced talks with festival managers from around the world.”
The Dancing Seahorse project already has serious token holders such as Polo G, Iggy Azalea, G Herbo, and a number of high net worth individuals with others coming onstream later on.
The NFTs themselves were developed in conjunction with the nftie agency who provided the artwork.
The Dancing Seahorse Marketplace is planned for later this year and will showcase music related NFTs but the team is initially focused on the utility for token holders. There are two drops planned; the first is 444 legendary seahorses and the second is 8,888 premium seahorses.
“The legendary have a significant rarity to them and the premium will also offer utility; the former will drop in September and the latter in October.”
Dancing Seahorse also comes with its own native token, the RokCoin, planned for launch in Q1 next year, which will be used to pay for tickets and merch directly at concerts.
Nahai is coming over to London later this month to talk more about the project. Dancing Seahorse is the headline sponsor for ZebuLive, a huge NFT and metaverse conference now in its second year.
“We have a tonne of respect for the ZebuLive team – they are truly trail blazers in Web3. We are very happy to reveal our project in London at the end of the month.”
“Come and say hello,” he says. Or visit the project at Dancingseahorse.com.
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