Whitepaper
Introduction
Pow Pow! Block Ark Studios is an independent music minting platform and marketplace tailored specifically for the reggae community. Our studio simplifies the process of uploading songs to web3, while our marketplace offers a streamlined way to collect and share songs. Importantly, we ensure that royalties are always returned to the musicians. Block Ark will be the central hub for collecting web3 reggae NFTs and set an example for directly supporting musicians through tokenomics.
Reggae has long been celebrated for its unique and collaborative sound, intended primarily for the enjoyment of listeners who often assume that musicians and producers are fairly compensated. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We are committed to addressing this issue by ensuring fair compensation while still nurturing a thriving and collaborative environment.
Ecosystem
Block Ark Studios offers a unique smart contract enabling minters to select their desired supply without impacting their cost. Each song incorporates the ERC-2981 NFT Royalty Standard for on-chain recording and immediate royalty payments. Additional options include on-chain ISRC and copyright.
There are 2 distinct studios on the Block Ark:
The Public Studio is available for everyone to use. Minting has flat fee of 0.001 eth and are tagged with a 
BAS check
The Curated Studio is available for approved applicants. Minting has a flat fee of 0.0001 eth and all Records are listed with the 
BAS check.
This setup is designed to discourage spam minting by implementing a small minting fee and to allow easy sorting for what will most likely be reggae Records from known musicians.
The Market encourages buying, selling, and trading Curated Records (NFTs) by rewarding both buyers and sellers with $ROOTs and directing ETH royalties back to the musicians. Also built utilizing the ERC-2981 Royalty Standard, it ensures that all standardized listings are processed correctly. Any Records listed on the Market that are not from the Public Studio or the Curated Studio are catagorized as "Outer Studio" Records.
The Magazine provides a platform for musicians and fans to promote new releases, upcoming shows, or reviews. To write articles, authors must burn $ROOTS, with the required amount increasing with each article submitted by the same author.
The Library contains all your collected and minted Records (NFTs) and of course a playlist for easily organizing and setting up the vibe.
Records
Block Ark Studios music NFT's, called Records, come from one of our Studios: the Public Studio and the Curated Studio. The Public Studio is accessible to everyone and charges a minting fee of 0.001 ETH. In contrast, the Curated Studio is exclusive to musicians who have successfully applied and has a lower minting fee of 0.0001 ETH. Records produced under the Curated Studio will feature a checkmark when listed on the Market, making them easily distinguishable.
Minting Records through Block Ark Studios is like producing hundreds of LPs for a single. We have a custom ERC-1155 smart contract that assigns the same Token ID to each minted Record, functioning much like a Pressing Number. This system allows minters to control the total supply of their Records and the cost of minting remains the same, regardless of whether you produce one or one million copies. To mint new Records, you will need the audio file, an image for cover art, artist name, song title, and the total number of Records you wish to create. Additionally, you have the option to include royalties, copyright, and an ISRC to be permanently embedded on the blockchain.
Collecting Curated Records through the Market includes the benefit of receiving $ROOTS equivalent in denomination to the total ETH royalties sent back to the musician. This model encourages participation and collaboration among all parties and maximizes benefits for musicians.
Safeguarding the Market from spam mints, disputed songs, and unrelated content is a priority for our team. We utilize a mix of on-chain and off-chain features to ensure the Market moderators maintain a secure platform for all musicians.
Tokenomics
$ROOTS is the ERC-20 token of the Block Ark ecosystem. All 420,000,069 tokens are minted to a dispensary contract responsible for managing the distribution to all other contracts below:
Contracts
$ROOTS: An ERC-20 token only on Soneium. Total supply: 420,000,069. $ROOTS is intended to be an on-chain representation of your support for reggae musicians.
Market: When buying or selling a Record with royalties through the Market, the total $ROOTS bonus dispensed to both the buyer and seller is equal to the total ether royalties sent to the musician. For example, if a Record with 20% royalties is listed for sale for 1 ether, the buyer will receive the Record, plus 0.2 $ROOTS. The seller will receive 0.8 ether plus 0.2 $ROOTS. The original minter of the Record will receive 0.2 ether.
Studio: A customized ERC-1155 contract that enables large quantities of mints for a single, low cost. Whether choosing to mint 10 Records or 10 million Records, the cost is the same. It is up to the artist to determine the total number of Records to be minted by finding a balance between supply and demand. The Studio has a fee of 0.001 ether for all Public mints and a 0.0001 ether fee for all Curated mints. Options to include royalties, copyright, and ISRC are also available.
Magazine: An ERC-721 contract which mints magazine articles in exchange for burning $ROOTS. Anyone can publish articles in the Magazine. The burn cost of $ROOTS required to publish articles increases for each additional article written by the same author.
Community Claim: This contract makes sure the $ROOTS airdrop lands on target. 3 Snapshots of 60 different reggae or ganja themed collections were taken in early 2024. A little over 24,000 unique addresses are eligible to claim their portion of the $ROOTS airdrop. You can check your eligibility at the testnet airdrop page: https://minato.blockarkstudios.com/airdrop
LP Distributor: The LP Distributor contract will be open to accepting ether for a 30-day contribution period, after which the contract will no longer accept ether. 100% of the ether contributions are pooled together with the allocated 23.6% supply of $ROOTS already held in the contract to establish a liquidity pool on UniSwap. We designed the LP Distributor to solve the steep learning curve required to participate in DeFi. Users can simply send native ether to the contract address and claim their liquidity tokens upon instantiation of the pool on Uniswap. This is the easiest way for our community to participate in decentralized finance.
Grow $ROOTS: The Grow $ROOTS program is designed to retain liquidity in the Block Ark Ecosystem by distributing $ROOTS to users who lock their liquidity tokens in Lockers. A Locker has a minimum lock time of 130,000 blocks and a maximum lock time of 16,000,000 blocks. Every new block will release 1.683409713394216134 $ROOTS which is allocated to all active Lockers. Lockers automatically become inactive once their lock time has expired. This program is expected to stop dripping tokens in the year 2069. *We know that 1.683 is rounded down to ~1.68 but, like, come on... we just can't help ourselves.
Give $ROOTS: The total supply of 420,000,069 $ROOTS is minted to the Give $ROOTS contract which handles dispersing $ROOTS to the other contracts.
$ROOTS Reserve: The smallest of the reserve contracts, $ROOTS Reserve is not intended to be utilized. We have no plans for these tokens other than holding them for unforseen circumstances.
Artist Reserve: We will distribute 10,000 $ROOTS from the Artist Reserve as a signing bonus to musicians and artists that sign a content sharing contract with Block Ark Studios. We took some time to ensure we don't have empty shelves on day 1. We plan to use all of the tokens in this contract.
Team Reserve: These tokens are evenly distributed (25/25/25/25) to the Block Ark Studios team members.
Roadmap
Charting a course into the future of music distribution will be an epic journey...
Step I
Soneium Minato Testnet:
Step II
Soneium Mainnet Launch: